Bayelsa Election: Soldiers ‘chased away’ key PDP stakeholders, PDP’s Diri alleges

Bayelsa Election: Soldiers ‘chased away’ key PDP stakeholders, PDP’s Diri alleges

PDP governorship candidate, Duoye Diri

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Duoye Diri, has faulted the outcome of the governorship election in Bayelsa State.

Diri, who addressed a news conference on Sunday, accused the Nigerian Army of intimidating agents and supporters of the PDP in Ogbia Local Government Area (LGA) of the state.

He alleged that some soldiers stormed the collation centre in Ogbia, stressing that such an action was unacceptable to his party.

Diri also called on the electoral body to reject all the results from Ogbia LGA, claiming that they have been “doctored and tutored”.

“This is not the way our democracy will advance; this is not the way our democracy will progress,” he stressed.

The PDP candidate made the allegations hours before INEC declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr David Lyon, as the winner of the keenly contested election.

INEC’s Returning Officer and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin, Professor Faraday Orunmuwese, declared Lyon as the winner after scoring the highest number of votes in the poll.

The APC candidate polled a total of 352,552 votes to defeat his closest rival of the PDP who scored 143,172 votes.