Bayelsa: Pressure mounts on Alaibe to withdraw suit from S’ Court

…. Party dangles senate slot to Alaibe

OBIORA IFOH, Abuja

Though the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, in the Bayelsa governorship election, Senator Douye Diri has since assumed office as the governor of the oil rich state, however, the coast is still not clear as front runner and one of the aggrieved aspirants in the PDP crisis who also was the former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Timi Alaibe, is still bent on going ahead with the legal battle against the party and the new governor.

The former Managing Director of the NDDC ,who claimed that the immediate past governor, Seriake Dickson, manipulated the party primary in favour of his anointed candidate, Douye Diri, had filed a suit to challenge the outcome of the primary won by the latter.

In the suit, he is asking the court to examine the entire processes that resulted in the primaries and rule in his favour, even as he claimed that the party’s guidelines were observed in the breach in “a desperate move to impose a pre-determined hand-picked candidate on the people out of 21 aspirants.”

Alaibe was believed to be the favorite of both the grass root and the political class in the state. He also enjoys the support of the power brokers in the Niger Delta region but his ambition was clearly checked by Dickson who insisted on the emergence of the current governor. Amongs his greatest supporters are former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former President Goodluck Jonathan, both former and incumbent governors of Rivers state, Peter Odili and Ezenwo Wike and frontline traditional ruler and kingmaker, King Turner.

While the swearing in was ongoing last Thursday, Alaibe had sneaked into Abuja and held meetings with several groups and a source in the meeting told Champion Newspaper that it was concluded that the court matter will be continued to the logical conclusion.

At the residence of former President Jonathan, the new Governor Diri at the weekend had used the occasion of his presentation of letter of Return to the former president to pressure him to prevail on Alaibe to withdraw the case.

To placate Dr Alaibe, speculation is rife that concerned PDP stakeholders are appealing to him to withdraw his suit with the ticket of the seat of Bayelsa Central senatorial slot vacated by the governor-elect, Senator Diri to be placed on his laps.

But a PDP source argued that such an arrangement is not cast in iron since Senator Diri and Timi Alaibe are from the same Kolokuma Opokuma Local Government Area of the state.

The source queried: “How do you convince other local councils in the same Bayelsa central to allow governor and senator come from the same local government?

Like Timi Alaibe, Governor Douye Diri is from Kolokuma Opokuma Local Government Area in the Central Senatorial District of the state. If Alaibe is compensated with the senatorial ticket, it means both the governor and the senator are likely to come from same local government area. Will Yenagoa and Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas agree?’’

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