Governor Seriaki Dickson of Bayelsa State wanted Senator Douye Diri and Senator Emhwrudjakpo Lawrence to succeed him as governor and deputy governor respectively. His reason is so that when he leaves office next year, January, he would take the seat vacated by Lawrence. His plan was that when these two become governors and vacate their offices there would be a by-election to fill the vacant positions. He had planned to work his way into becoming the winner for the Bayelsa senatorial re-run polls.
It was not for the interest of Bayelsans and the Ijaw nation as he often touted. Dickson’s ambition to foist Senators Diri and Lawrence on PDP and Bayelsans was unbridled. It did not know its limits. The worse part of the Dickson’s ambitious quest is that he pursued it with much arrogance.
Senator Diri represents Bayelsa Central, at the senate, while Lawrence is the senator representing Bayelsa West Senatorial zone, where Dickson comes from.
Bayelsans, who saw clearly the path Dickson was travelling , in the process trampling on so many who should have stood behind him, rejected him and his candidate last Saturday, at the polls.
They voted for David Lyon, the All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate, whom Dickson’s supporters poked as uneducated and one who could not communicate in English, and thus not fit to govern the state.
Dickson’s eyes were fixed on the seat of Lawrence, and not on that of Diri, but one of the reasons he had to go for Diri as governorship candidate is because Lawrence, who is from the minority Urhobo tribe in Bayelsa, may not attract the required acceptance by the majority Izon tribe of Bayelsa. Besides, the zoning argument would not favour the governorship candidate coming from the same senatorial zone the incumbent came from.
In several of our reports leading to the Bayelsan PDP primary we exposed how the country boy governor, Dickson foisted Diri on the party. There were complaints of manipulation of the process, the arm-twisting of local government chairmen and councilors whom Dickson had put in office few weeks to the primary. There were also claims of inducement of some of the party agents and voters by the governor, using state resources and structures. Put simply, Dickson’s opponents claimed he did not allow for a level playing field for all candidates who sought the PDP ticket.
The governor’s ambition made him to decline to give his deputy, John Jonah, support, even though he had spoken glowingly of the uncommon loyalty and dedication to duty of the deputy. Dickson also reportedly ignored his benefactor, former president Goodluck Jonathan, because his candidate, Timi Alaibe, would not favour his ambition. There were accusations that Dickson, wanted to play the godfather of Bayelsa politics, in the process demanding that the former president bow to his idiosyncrasies. He continued in this path of undermining critical leaders of Bayelsa politics and those of the Ijaw nation and also those of the PDP before the party primary and during the processes leading to it. He continued to boast both publicly and privately that no one would be able to stop him from having his way.
In our August 19, 2019 article we reported Dickson’s threat to the PDP. He boasted that only the candidate he supports can win the Bayelsa governorship election. He made the threat during the official flag-off of campaigns for local government elections that held few weeks before the party primary.
In that article titled: Dickson Boasts, Draws Battle Line Ahead of PDP Primary, the governor said: “Let me tell you, Oforoma-Pepe (Dickson) is in charge; there is no candidate or aspirant in PDP, none of them that can lead our party to victory during the governorship election without my support, forget about those making mouth, we are the support base of PDP in Bayelsa.
In an August 13, 2019 meeting with recently elected local government chairmen and councilors, the governor clearly asked the officials to be ready to vote for his candidate, telling them he was setting up a structure and providing fund to support his preferred candidate.
He warned the LG chairmen and the councilors of the danger of not carrying out his orders, saying that any person that wins the governorship election other than his candidate would dissolve them and appoint new officers.
Several of these persons, the governor had offended waited to get their pound of flesh at the polls.
Dickson realized that the November 16, 2019 Bayelsa governorship election would be a contest between state and federal might. This is what he had to say then: “Those who are boasting that they will take the governorship primary away from Yenagoa to another state, let me tell you, that kind of thing cannot happen at all. This year’s governorship election will be a clash between federal might and state might, just like what happened in 2015.”
Yet, in his arrogance alienated state operators, some of them, with huge political might, such as former president Goodluck Jonathan, who should have formed a formidable team to counter the APC force backed by federal might.
He had told some of the leaders of PDP whom he reckoned were working against his interest: “I am in charge, do your part and leave the rest for me. Don’t bother yourself, we do not talk too much. You will see what will happen. They said one governor Wike (reference to Nyesom Wike, governor of River State) is coming to chair convention; there is nothing like that.
As it has now turned out Dickson’s ambition failed him and his arrogance turned him in, as it appears his opponents had the last laugh. While we admit that there is nothing wrong for one to be ambitious we note however, as Shakespeare said in Julius Caeser: “ambition should be made of sterner stuff”. We add that ambition should know the limit of its quest and should be expressed by honourable men.
The Dickson’s fall at the polls, except something happens at the courts to reverse its course, is one of the many lessons that would be laid on history’s archives for men to learn from; even though so many still go ahead to fall into the same pits those before them had fallen.
