A group has alleged plans by former First Lady and wife of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience Jonathan, to hijack the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State to foist a candidate of her choice in the forthcoming governorship election in Bayelsa State.
The group, Forum For Political Freedom in Bayelsa State, accused Dame Jonathan of using her “illegally acquired wealth” to heavily fund and create a power bloc in the APC in Bayelsa State.
She was alleged to be using members of the defunct Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, whom she was alleged to have equally used to undermine the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state in the period leading up to the last presidential election, which her husband lost.
According to the Director-General of FOPOF, Elder Adenzi Kakarite, the majority of those defecting from the PDP to the APC are not only her close associates, but vocal members of the defunct TAN in Bayelsa State, whom she wants to use to impose a candidate of her choice to run on the platform of the party in the forthcoming elections.
Elder Kakarite pointed out that the former first lady, who had promised to remain in Okrika, her hometown, has now made Otuoke, her husband’s hometown, her political sanctuary and daily holding meetings and providing funds with a view to ensuring that the defectors hijack the machinery of the APC to perfect her plans.
The FOPOF statement further disclosed that to show her greed for power, she is on the other hand also funding and working with the PDP Unity Forum, made up of PDP members, who were accused of anti-party activities during the last state House of Assembly poll in the state and were either expelled or suspended from the party.
It explained that most of this group of PDP members, who were readmitted into the party after the peace and reconciliation efforts of the national and state offices of the party, are being funded by the former First Lady to carry out campaigns of calumny and spreading deliberate falsehood to discredit Governor Seriake Dickson so that she would also have her preferred candidate run for the PDP, thereby placing herself in a win-win situation.
FOPOF also warned Bayelsans to be mindful of the dirty and anti-progressive antics of this group of persons, who are going about propagating falsehood, using some vulnerable Bayelsans to state that the PDP will lose the Bayelsa State governorship if it fields Dickson in the forthcoming election.
The statement reads in part: :The former first lady is very greedy and selfish by wanting to sponsor the candidates of both the PDP and the APC, so that, she can continue to milk the State dry.
“Bayelsans must rise up and resist this woman, who clearly do not mean well for Bayelsa State, because she was partly the reason for the husband’s defeat in the last presidential election, and since she couldn’t succeed at the National level, she wants to come and force a governor of her choice down our throats. No, we must resist it.”
The statement disclosed that Dame Jonathan is coming to meddle in Bayelsa State politics because she has fallen out of favour with her kinsmen in Okrika, Rivers State, stressing that Bayelsans should rise up with one voice to fight this injustice about to be perpetrated by one woman for her own selfish interest.
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