Bayelsa State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate Chief Timipre Sylva has said he is in the race to win and not to withdraw.
The former governor said those fabricating stories about his withdrawal from the suspended governorship election were making futile attempts to save the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and Governor Seriake Dickson from “sure and imminent defeat”.
A statement yesterday in Yenagoa, the state capital, by his media adviser, Mr. Doifie Buokoribo, urged Dickson to stop dissipating his energy on what it called falsehood, hypocrisy and deceit.
The statement said: “Dickson should wait for the outcome of the governorship election and try to control his fear and deceit, which cannot sway any Bayelsan, as the people know better.”
It added: “The falsehood about Sylva’s withdrawal from the governorship contest, that Dickson had tried to mar with his uncivilised vituperations and open call to violence, is part of the same strategy of deceit and violence, which Dickson and PDP have employed since the beginning of the election process.
“In lie after lie, which we have roundly exposed, Dickson has shown that he has nothing other than deception to offer the people of Bayelsa in the election. This latest chicanery about Sylva’s withdrawal, as the others before it, will not give Dickson any reprieve from sure and imminent defeat awaiting him.
“Sylva has no reason to withdraw from the election he is poised to win. In fact, the matter has gone beyond Sylva. The people of Bayelsa State have bonded in a mass movement determined to make a history of Dickson’s maladministration.
“The issue is now between Dickson and the people, who have resolved to vote him out. Little wonder he resorted to sponsorship of violence during the election, knowing he cannot win a peaceful contest in the state he has misruled for nearly four years.
“Dickson has achieved a remarkable notoriety for spreading lies about Sylva, using certain political newsletters masquerading as online newspapers and sponsoring ridiculous suits on the election. He has also set up a kangaroo commission of enquiry to try to divert attention from his crimes against Bayelsa people in the last few weeks. These will fail.
“Sylva is at peace with himself and the Bayelsa people, as they patiently wait for the stilling of the violent storms initiated by Dickson and his co-travellers on the destructive path of political savagery, to take over power on February 14, 2016.”