PDP PRIMARIES: ALAIBE’S PLOT TO KIDNAP DELEGATES UNCOVERED -PDP YOUTH NETWORK
The Peoples Democratic Party Youths Network has said that it has uncovered a plot by the former Managing Director òf the Niger Delta Development Commission, Chief Timi Alaibe, to lure delegates into forcible custody ahead of the September 3, 2019 party primaries.
The Secretary General of the Group, Mr. James Oputin, called on all delegates of the party to adhere strictly to the directive of the state leadership òf the party to avoid attending meetings with aspirants outside designated locations within the state capital to avoid untoward incidents.
Oputin said the decision of the State Executive Committee to accommodate all officials of the party who are delegates from the Ward, local government and state levels, in hotels in Yenagoa should be obeyed by all aspirants and their supporters.
Oputin who commended the party for the position on delegates accommodation, said decision had foiled Alaibe’s plan to hoodwink the delegates to meetings where he would promise them money, take them to unknown locations and forcibly take away their phones to make them act against their will.
He also hailed the leadership òf the PDP on the decision to create easy access for all the aspirants and their campaign directors to interact freely with the delegates in the hotels.
The PDP Youth Network Scribe expressed disappointment only Chief Alaibe, out of 21 aspirants opposed the fair suggestion to accommodate the delegates in hotels in Yenagoa for all the aspirants to access them.
He said that the group found it curious that an aspirant would opposed the suggestion by the governor at the expanded caucus meeting, that the delegates should be kept in hotels in Yenagoa as a break from the old practice where where delegates are kidnapped
Oputin said that the umbrella youth body of the PDP was interested in credible free and fair primaries and not a candidate that would emerge through brigandage and underhand tactics.
He called on the state and national leadership of the party to ensure that the process for the election of the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP was not corrupted by desperate politicians.
He commended the determination of the state governor to change the politics of the state by making a deliberate departure from the primitive way of kidnapping delegates, taking them away to Delta Rivers States, deprive them of their phones, and then force them to do things against their will.
He said that the PDP should show the example as the ruling political party in Bayelsa State since 1999 by presenting the best and most popular candidate for the November 16, 2019 Governorship election in the interest of the party and the state.
