BY PHILIP EKE, YENAGOA
A front line Governorship aspirant under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Diekivie Okolovie Obhoo, has appealed to all Bayelsans to vote for him in the forth coming Gubernatoral election, he called on Bayelsans to flush out the dictatorial regime of Governor Seriake Dickson .
Speaking while interacting with newsmen in Yenagoa Obhoo, a University of Port Harcourt graduate of Political Science and Administrative Studies said Dickson has turned Bayelsa to a banana republic where decision making concerning the well-being of the State has become a one man show. The state has been controlled as a family affairs.
He said, close to the State and National Assembly Elections, the Restoration Government-led Governor Dickson became dictatorial, retrogressive and repressive in all its actions thereby led to massive defection of dignified PDP loyalists including prominent politicians to other parties in the State to avoid humiliation.
He said, as the administration continues to undermine public opinions and views of others except his personal opinions which he overtly exhibited to Bayelsa indeed made him a dictator to the core in the State.
Obhoo who is a one time Campaign Director ALAMCO 1999, Chairman Yenagoa Local Government Council and Chairman Public Complaints Commission (Federal) traced the genesis of the PDP crisis that rocked Bayelsa political environment, especially the PDP family that led to an unimaginable and dangerous proportion as experienced today.
He said, under the so called restoration government, Dickson has turned all the sectors of the state economy into a personalized business enterprise noting that Bayelsans now get their bread with the peril of their lives because of the dictatorial tendencies of the restoration regime.
Under the restoration government, he said, there is naked and crude politics of authoritative allocation of society resources to only those the administration likes, including its kiths and kin and deny those the administration does not like, just because they are not subservient to him.
In spite of the administration’s pompous gestures and presumptuous claims coupled with know-all- attitude in governance, accusing previous governments of ineptitude and incapable of delivering democracy dividends to the people, Obhoo said, the restoration government has lost its ‘talk-na-doism’ slogan as it has failed to deliver democracy dividends to the people of the State.
He said, the restoration government is already in coma and hemorrhaging, including its developmental projects due to ineptitude and incapable in meeting-up governance obligations to the people of the State, including civil servants.
He said, it is abundantly adequate to state the obvious without any equivocation that when the unrighteous and dictatorship reign supreme in anywhere, the people suffer not only dehumanization, deprivation and humiliation but also denial and intimidation of their rights entitlements and privileges, stating that this is a precarious situation Bayelsans found themselves today under the Restoration Government-led by Governor Seriake Dickson.
He said the restoration government put in place by Governor Dickson has common characteristics of a Police State where he uses state power arbitrarily over its citizens, intimidating and arresting law abiding citizens who are into Freedom of Association as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigerian as amended.
He said, it is also under the current restoration government that students of Bayelsa State learning in Higher Institutions across the length and breadth of the country were made to go through rigors of processing bursary documents, yet only few paid, while a large number of students are yet to be paid and called on Bayelsa to flush out the Dickson’s dictatorial restoration government through the ballot box.
Quoting an ancient Greek philosophy which states inter alia, he said, “when the devil wants to destroy, it will first and foremost make the person deaf and blind before destruction”, Obhoo said this is what is happening to Dickson’s administration, stating that the administration has become deaf and blind and therefore will collapse in no distant time, as Bayelsans at the grassroots will vote him out in the gubernatorial election slated for December 2015.
He also said the restoration government has become a fascist foisted on Bayelsa that never positively impacted on the lives of the people as the administration is unable to even pay the workers their approved remunerations and emoluments it met as governance obligations and service to the people.
He said because of Governor Dickson’s dictatorial tendencies, quality politicians are not found in his camp rather his administration is inundated with failed and redundant politicians and sycophantic parasites that have rubbished the State economy in the years past without their impact felt by Bayelsans right from Rivers State.
He said, while there is non-payment of over-heads and other allowances due political office holders, civil servants salaries are being arbitrarily slashed, including non-payment of benefits to retirees who have put in their best in the service of the state and the country at large while, Governor Dickson and his immediate family members are feeding fat at the expense of the down-trodden Bayelsans.
He said, under the restoration government, Bayelsans were informed of payment of scholarship’ (Local & foreign) worth #10bn without the people knowing the names of the beneficiaries, neither their name found in any of print media for the people to verify the authenticity of the claim by the government of the day. In fact, this is the highest monumental fraud of the Century ever recorded in the annals of Bayelsa State, committed by a government that called itself restoration.
He said, it is also under the restoration government that over #4bn were provided by Federal Government, Donor Agencies, individuals and other enlightened benevolences to ameliorate the plight of the 2012 flood divested victims and communities, yet these communities are still in their ruins with Governor Dickson deceiving the people unending.
It is also under this restoration government that reticulated pipe-borne water in parts of Yenagoa metropolis, put in place by the Sylva administration was stopped without giving any reasonably convincing explanation as to the stoppage of the pipe-born water; residents of Yenagoa had earlier enjoyed before the coming-on board of the Restoration Government.
He said, with the pushing-out half-truths, lamentable lies, endless excuses and counter-excuses of revenue shortfall orchestrated by the Dickson-led restoration government, “commodious living has become a nigh-mire and an illusion in Bayelsa while its avowed mission of restoring the people of the State becomes an illusion and a total failure in a State flowing with milk and honey, (The Glory of All Lands).
He questioned Bayelsans on what basis should Bayelsa vote for Governor Dickson when he overtly insulted and described them as economically unviable and unproductive in their own land, while addressing non-indigenes at the peace park?
According to Obhoo, the so-called model secondary schools and hospitals, Dickson claimed to have built in the eight local government areas are taken over by grasses and huge forest and even the schools’ system lack facilities for effective learning.
According to him, it is high time, Bayelsan say no to the second term bid of Governor Seriake Dickson so as to put away the dictatorship from among them.
In his conclusion, he said, only God will save Bayelsans and not surely the so-called Restoration Government that has become politically deceptive, defective, and vindictive and a subterfuge of our time.
Commenting on his political agenda for the State, if given the opportunity includes full employment, Industrialization, educational revolution, agricultural revolution and aggressive rural transformation for the people of the State to actualize a better standard of living. When voted into power, there will be rapid transformation in all sectors.
