Former Governor and Bayelsa State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Timipre Sylva, yesterday, asked the incumbent governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, to halt his dangerous campaign against the state’s election petition tribunal.
Sylva said Dickson and his co-travelers were patronizing a few online media to cast aspersions on tribunal members and browbeat the court, as it prepares to deliver its judgment.
The former governor is challenging the outcome of the 2015 governorship election in which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Dickson, a candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the winner.
Sylva, in a statement signed by his Media Adviser, Mr. Doifie Buokoribo, reacted to series of alleged verbal attacks launched by pro-Dickson’s groups ahead of the judgment.
He said that Dickson was frequently using bully-boy tactics involving a series of lies deliberately told to impugn the integrity of the tribunal in obvious fear of an unfavourable ruling.
Sylva said: “In one of the canards about a week ago, vended through a strange group, Good Governance Initiative (GGI), the Dickson group claimed that Sylva was lobbying the wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami (SAN), the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engr. Babachir David Lawal, and other officials of the Federal Government to put pressure on the election tribunal to declare him governor via a “black market judgment.
“According to the report, “Some key supporters of the Dickson-led PDP” have met to plan how to react in the event of an unfavourable judgment.
“Chief Sylva, who is the petitioner in the case, sees this attempt by Dickson to second-guess the decision of the tribunal and, perhaps, try to intimidate it, as immoral and despicable. Sylva appeals to Dickson and his men to allow the tribunal to do its job.”
The statement said that Dickson successfully applied his familiar intimidation strategies in the past, before, during, and after the governorship election in the state last December and this January.
Such tactics, Sylva said would not succeed with the judiciary, adding that as a democrat, he took his case against the last election to the tribunal.
He said: “As a democrat and firm believer in the rule of law, Sylva had taken his misgivings about the outcome of the election to the election tribunal to see if the victory awarded to Dickson by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could stand up to judicial scrutiny.”