Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State on Wednesday won the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party for the state governorship election scheduled for November 11.
Diri was the only aspirant cleared by the Philip Shuaibu-led PDP screening committee for the Bayelsa exercise in March. With this development, the coast is clear for Diri to seek a second tenure.
The ad-hoc delegates were drawn from the eight local government areas of the state.
The PDP’s head of panel for the elective state delegates congress for the Bayelsa governorship primaries and governor of Osun state, Ademola Adeleke, declared Diri as the winner of the election held at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre, Yenagoa.
Adeleke said that the governor polled a total of 305 votes to emerge as the sole candidate of the party.
He said, “Having satisfied the requirements of this election and having scored the highest number of votes, I, Senator Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke, by the power vested in me as the chairman, Chief Returning Officer, hereby declare Senator Douye Diri as the winner of the election.
“I, therefore, return him as the candidate of the PDP in the November 2023 election.”
In his acceptance speech, Diri described the exercise as “the best primaries in the history of our party in Bayelsa state.”
He noted that the primaries were a mere formality to fulfill the requirements contained in the Electoral Act, adding that his party was growing more potent daily.
Diri attributed his emergence as the only aspirant for the primaries to the understanding within the party.
He said, “Some would have questioned that our governor is the only candidate, we don’t need this process, our governor can just continue and then we face whoever that will come from any opposition party here in the state.
“But the electoral laws do not permit us that way. It is therefore with this utmost joy and a very grateful heart to all of us in the Peoples Democratic Party, the leaders, the followers and all the allies, I do accept your nomination as the candidate of our great party to contest in the November 11 governorship election in the state.”
