Dickson wins Sylva re-election as Bayelsa governor

Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson yesterday won a second term after election in the  state.
The election came to a conclusion following the declaration of results of Saturday’s supplementary election results in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and 101 polling units across six local government areas.

Dickson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won with 134,998 votes to beat the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Timipre Sylva, who polled 86,852 votes.


Declaring the results, the Returning Officer and Vice -Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Zena Akpagu, said Dickson was returned having satisfied the requirements of the law and scoring the highest votes cast.

Amid tight security, Akpagu declared the winner of the election at the state collation centre inside the multipurpose hall of the Yenagoa Local Government Area secretariat.

Hundreds of armed security operatives surrounded the venue and its environs with head of security agencies, such as the police, army and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, monitoring the proceedings.

The governor  lead of 33,150 votes to 48,146 to retain his position after election.
The breakdown of the results showed that Dickson won in seven of the eight local government areas. Sylva won in only his Brass Local Government Area.

In Yenagoa Local Government Area, Dickson won the supplementary election with 839 votes as against Sylva’s 448 votes.

The consolidated results for the Council showed that PDP and Dickson polled 25,097 to defeat APC and its candidate who scored 15,011.

In Brass,  the APC candidate widened his lead in the six polling units where the rerun election was held. Sylva polled 1,679 to extend his previous lead from 21,755 to 23,434 votes. Dickson got five votes to have a consolidated total of 6517 votes.

In Ogbia, Dickson extended his lead in the 27 polling units where the rerun poll was held.  He polled 1290 votes to lead from 13051 to 14341 votes.  Sylva added only 139 votes to get 9249.

Also, the PDP and Dickson won in Ekeremor, the local government area of the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, amidst protests by the APC.

Dickson extended his lead from 14,602 votes to 17,297 after securing 2,695 in the 32 polling units where the supplementary election was held in the area.

Agbedi said the 257 votes scored by the APC in Ekeremor should be cancelled, describing them as stolen votes. Agbedi, who is a member of the House of Representatives, accused the APC of engaging in actions that led to the cancellation.

He said: “l vehemently object to that procedure. When votes had been collated and brought to the INEC office, any party that has problem with it goes to the tribunal.”