The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leadership in the Central Senatorial District of Bayelsa State have begun piling pressure on a former governor of the state, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, to drop his senatorial ambition.
The PDP leaders, who admitted that the former governor is qualified to contest the seat, requested him to abandon such ambition based on the decision to zone the Bayelsa Central slot to Kolokuma/Opokuma part of the state.
They maintained that the native Southern Ijaw axis of the former governor had produced a senator for two tenures and should therefore allow other parts of the district to produce the next senator.
A senatorial aspirant from Kolokuma/Opokuma, Mr Douye Diri, urged former Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha to drop his senatorial ambition and play the father figure for the younger ones.
Speaking after submitting his nomination forms at the state party secretariat, Diri, who resigned recently as principal secretary to Governor Seriake Dickson, said that out of the three LGs that make up Bayelsa Central, two LGs – Yenagoa and Southern Ijaw had had shots at the Senate for 16 years with the exception of Kolokuma/Opokuma.
“For Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, politically speaking, his declaration (to contest the senatorial seat) is actually very wrong”, he said.
Another top chieftain of the party in the state, who pleaded anonymity, told DailyPost that “Chief Alamieyeseigha should know better about the need to make every local government feel among in the distribution of political offices. How can an area which has for two terms represented us at the Senate now change the person there for another of the state?”, the source queried.
The party man added that instead of the party leaders in the zone to have another person from Southern Ijaw part run for Senate, they would rather have the incumbent senator continue.
Hee projected that it would be easier to unseat the present senator in 2019 than an Alamieyeseigha.
The party elder went on to urge the former governor to toe the path of honour by avoiding any selfish action that was capable of denying President Goodluck Jonathan victory in his home state.
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