Ex-militants not regrouping in Bayelsa for guber re-run poll – INEC explains

Independent National Electoral Commission has dismissed reports that former militants in the Niger Delta area were gathering in Bayelsa State ahead of the January 9 rescheduled governorship election in the state.
INEC said there was no truth in the rumour that ex-militants from Rivers, Delta and Edo states were taking strategic positions in the state with the aim of disrupting the supplementary election to be held in the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state.
The Deputy Director of Publicity and Voters Education in the commission, Mr. Nick Dazang, stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday.
The cancellation of the election in the local government had made it impossible for the commission to announce the winner of the December 5 governorship election in the state.
The incumbent Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, who is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, had polled 105,748 votes while a former Governor of the state, Chief Timipre Sylva, who is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, had 72,594 votes.
However, being the home of militants before they were persuaded to surrender their arms by the Federal Government, there had been reports alleging that the former warlords had been recruited by politicians with the aim of causing mayhem during the election.
The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had said the electoral body decided to cancel the election in the most populous local government in the state due to violence.
He said the commission could also not allow the election to stand even when it was postponed for a day after the poll was held in seven other local government areas in the state.
“Where there are threats to the lives of our officials, we wouldn’t mind applying the law that states that where that is feasible and it is impossible for elections to hold, we should cancel the election and rerun same another day.
“And that was the decision we took. We believe that our principal responsibility, as a commission, is to protect the lives of our staff, ad-hoc or permanent, and also the election materials,” Yakubu added.
Dazang, however, assured the people of the state in particular and Nigerians in general in an interview with our correspondent on Tuesday that the supplementary election would be peaceful.