Stop insulting Buhari, Sylva warns Dickson

The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Ti­mipre Sylva, yesterday cautioned the State Gov­ernor, Hon. Seriake Dick­son against disparaging and denigrating the per­son of President Muham­mad Buhari and other Service Chiefs over the inconclusive governorship election in the state.

According to Sylva, though Governor Dickson has the right to freedom of expression, the increasing verbal tirades and threats being issued by him against the person of President Bu­hari is an open display of disrespect to the office of the President and a show of desperation to remain in office.

Sylva,in a statement is­sued yesterday in Yenagoa by Chief Nathan Egba, the Director of Media and Publicity for the Sylva/Ig­iri campaign Organisation, stated that “Dickson’s al­most daily rituals of insult­ing Mr. President, the Sec­retary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), the Military High Command and other senior citizens of the country because of an election he was not able to win, is no longer accept­able to say the least.

“The recent frequent outbursts on radio and tel­evision stations were un­warranted and unbecoming of a Governor. How can Dickson continue to incite Bayelsa people against the FG, security agencies, INEC and every other of­ficial just because of the Bayelsa governorship elec­tion?

“These are few of the numerous unguarded state­ments by Governor Dick­son, a man who took an oath to defend the constitu­tion. Governor Dickson had alleged that President Mu­hammadu Buhari, wanted to win Bayelsa state for the APC by all means and that the consequence “of any attempts to undermine the Ijaw people would be disas­trous” while also describing the Nigerian army as ‘army of occupation that must be driven out of Ijaw land.

“We are compelled to forward all these inciting statements by Governor Dickson as recorded from the several radio broadcasts to the Security Agencies for further investigation.

“For the avoidance of doubt, however, all the al­legations leveled against President Muhammadu Bu­hari, Secretary to the Gov­ernment of the Federation, Minister of Defence and the security agencies deployed for the election in Bayelsa are false, baseless and the figment of the imagination of Governor Dickson and the PDP. Nigerians and the world know that President Buhari remains a man of honour and integrity who has not shown any bias in this election, being an apos­tle of transparent, free and fair electoral process.

“Unfortunately, Mr. President’s desire to con­duct free, fair and cred­ible elections, devoid of violence has been truncat­ed by the violent acts and electoral fraud perpetrated by Governor Dickson and his PDP thugs imported into Bayelsa state to com­promise the election,” the statement concluded.