Continuing battle between Diri and Sylva for soul of Bayelsa

To give their candidates a solid foundation on which to win the November 11 governorship election, Bayelsa State’s major political players have intensified their campaigns. While it may seem that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the incumbent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are the front-runners, other political parties are shrewdly positioning themselves to have an impact at the polls. Political pundits describe this scheme as a brand-new way to buy votes as political parties have already resumed funding distribution and sharing of political appointments. However, based on the results of the most recent general election, party leaders are cautiously optimistic. State governors chosen on the platform of the nation’s largest opposition party were included in the PDP’s announcement of the makeup of a national campaign organization just on Monday.

While a former governor and the most recent Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, is the standard-bearer for the APC, the incumbent governor, Senator Douye Diri, is running for reelection under the PDP platform. Other candidates include Waibodei Subiri of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Udengs Eradiri, a former president of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), both of the Labour Party.
No one challenged the PDP’s candidate for governor, making it the first time since the state’s founding that the party had produced an unopposed candidate. Because they feel he merits a second term based on his performance over the previous three years, party members in the state granted him a right of first refusal.

Efforts are being made by Sylva of the APC, who won the primary after defeating five other candidates, including the party’s 2019 governorship candidate, Chief David Lyon, to reach out to the other candidates who disapproved of the primary’s results. Six candidates competed in a tense race for the party’s nomination, and he prevailed. Sylva, the party’s leader in the state, is rumored to have control of more than 80% of the APC’s state apparatus. She has a chance to unite the party and make the PDP fiercely competitive for the top government-housing seat in Creek Haven.

As Diri and Sylva run for reelection in hopes of serving a second term each, the conflict between the supporters of the two major parties, the PDP and APC, has grown beyond simple sentiments pertaining to fairness, equity, and justice. This time, the conflicting issue is any governor’s ability to run for a second term. Both Diri and Sylva have served one term in office and are running for re-election. In contrast to Sylva, who was governor from 2007 to 2011, Diri is in office from 2020 to 2024. As a result, Sylva has the constitutional right to run for re-election to Creek Haven for another four years, just as Diri deserves to continue serving in that capacity.

After the parties finished their primaries and candidates started to emerge, the conversation shifted away from which party had been in power in the state since 1999 and toward whether it would be morally and legally acceptable for the other candidates to support Diri’s eight-year tenure.

On the one hand, Diri’s supporters feel that the governor has accomplished a lot in the three years since he took office and that he merits another term to finish projects spread across the three senatorial districts roads that have made transportation of people, goods, and services between the state capital and remote coastal communities possible.

The argument, incidentally, is consistent with the opinions of some observers who support the principle of continuity in governance. They base their argument on the conceivable reasoning of the authors of section 182 (subsection 1b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), who believed that a second term in office would guarantee the completion of long-term projects, which would then translate to sustainable development.

The question of continuity, however, does not concern Sylva’s supporters in this election because their hero was unable to finish his massive projects while serving as governor. They believe that denying Sylva the right to a second term in office was appropriate, and that denying Diri the same right will be appropriate as well.

In a recent press conference, Sylva was quoted as saying that Bayelsans should give him another chance because his time serving as the APC’s state leader from 2015 to the present and as the state’s minister of state for petroleum resources has given him the knowledge and insight he needs to govern the state much better than he did 16 years ago.