Dickson, Sylva bicker over Bayelsa governorship election
Bayelsa State Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, and former governor of the state, Chief Timipre Sylva, are locked in a bitter feud ahead of the governorship election slated for November.
Strong indications have emerged that Sylva, who is an All Progressives Congress, (APC) chieftain, intends to contest for the position of governor in the November gubernatorial election in the state under the platform of APC.
He was unceremoniously dropped as candidate by the PDP when he sought to go for a second term as governor in 2011, and replaced with the incumbent governor, Seriake Dickson, who was then in the House of Representatives.
Since the victory of APC in the presidential election, loyalists of Sylva have regrouped, reportedly putting pressure on him to run for the office of the governor.
This development, added to the rising popularity of APC, and the political profile of Sylva who has emerged as one of the national leaders of APC, it was gathered, has made those in the camp of governor Dickson, jittery.
Recently, Sylva accused Dickson of governance by intimidation and fear, saying he would be flushed out of power in November.
But in his reaction, Dickson said that the era of Sylva as governor in the state was the darkest in the history of the State.
He, therefore, urged Sylva to consider his ambition of returning to Government House come 2016 as an illusion, saying the people of Bayelsa now knew better.
Dickson, in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel IworisoMarkson, said: “Sylva remarks epitomised those of a man who has lost focus and not in touch with the realities on the ground. It is heart warming that he (Sylva) is not accusing me of multiple crimes and criminality, secret killings, cultism, large scale corruption and brigandage, which were the hallmarks of his tenure as governor of Bayelsa State.
Dickson wondered how Sylva could imagine that he and the APC stood any chance of defeating a “performing PDP Governor” in the forthcoming election in the state.