The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just concluded Bayelsa State gubernatorial election, Chief Timipre Sylva has rejected the outcome of the election.
The former governor Monday said that the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conspired with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to deny him victory.
Sylva, who vowed to challenge what he described as the procured victory of the PDP in court, said the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Baritor Kpagir, deliberately set up a process to return the PDP candidate, Governor Seriake Dickson.
Sylva, who spoke in Yenagoa, the state capital, added that the REC became an interested party when he jumped into the arena to accuse an unknown candidate of trying to induce him with bribe.
The APC candidate said: “Well, as far as the REC was concerned, I did not just write petition, I did not just write for change of the REC, even the REC at some point descended to the arena and had to join issues with us, accusing a faceless candidate of offering him bribe.
“A REC like that, who is quarrelling with the candidate in an election, is allowed to conduct the same election? I have never seen this. It has never happened anywhere in Nigeria before. But unfortunately, I didn’t get a reprieve as you know.
“In that case, you don’t expect me to opt out of the election because they have refused to change the REC. I was forced as a candidate because if I said I wasn’t going to subject myself to the election, what were the options? I don’t have any options.
“INEC was the body to conduct the election, and I cried out to INEC over and over again to change the REC, but INEC refused to change him.
“What will I do? Of course, I went into the election unfortunately hoping at that time that the REC fortunately will have a change of heart. But you can see from the events that they were just ensuring that the APC lost that election.”
Sylva said the REC deliberately ensured that some areas in the local government areas he won in the December 5 election were cancelled and arranged a rerun election that took place on December 6.
“If you look at the event from the beginning on December 5, we won in a local government and they cancelled a section of that local government, reordered election the next day, almost without informing us.
“Meanwhile, there were other areas as well that were outstanding in the election. But those areas that they were interested in, they held a rerun on Sunday in those areas and then said that there was going to be a rerun for the other areas on January 9.
“Why didn’t they shift the rerun in those areas? You can see from the beginning that INEC was playing a game. This INEC in Bayelsa State was set up as part of the rigging machine of the PDP and I have said it over and over,” he said.
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