Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State yesterday drew the battle line with his political opponents within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as he took the battle for his re-election to their door step.
In an unmistakable step that gave a hint of what to expect in the coming days, Dickson at the transparency briefing in Banquet Hall, Yenagoa, revoked contracts awarded by his government to firms owned by a Presidential Assistant on Domestic Matters, Mr. Waripamowei Dudafa.
He also terminated the job awarded to the Board Chairman, Federal Polytechnic Ekowe, Bekes Etifa.
Justifying his action, the governor said the duo, who were given construction jobs at Kaiama, Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area, had abandoned them.
Dudafa and Etifa are known allies of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, who has not hidden her desire to ensure Dickson doesn’t get re-elected for a second term.
She was even alleged to have prepared Dudafa to take Dickson’s place but with her husband, President Goodluck Jonathan no longer going to be in power as from May 29, it remains to be seen how she would pull that off.
Before terminating the contracts, the governor told his audience that persons fighting him within the PDP are main beneficiaries of his administration.
“A number of them have big contracts which they have abandoned”, he said threatening to revoke more contracts awarded to his opponents.
Sounding tough, Dickson vowed that the PDP and his government would no longer tolerate characters who were allowed to operate in the state because of their perceived closeness to President Jonathan.
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With the exit of Jonathan, he promised to be more ruthless in dealing with enemies of his administration.
“It is going to be eyeball to eyeball now”, he said adding that a new order has come to the state.
He, therefore, appealed to the people of the state not to fall to the antics of persons that they will call the shots in the state if the new Federal Government takes over.
“They are deceiving you people because if a new President comes, he will work with me. We have formal ways we interact with the President”, he said.
He noted that when PDP reigned at the centre, it did not stop other opposition governors from existing in their various states.
Lambasting persons who left the PDP for the APC after the former failed to retain its grip on power at the centre in the last general elections, the governor said such persons, who moved in the hope of getting appointments in the new government, would be disappointed.
He said he was pained when one of them who hails from Kolo in Ogbia made a remark suggesting that he (Dickson) would soon defect to the APC.
He asked the lawmaker not to use his name and his image to build their party saying that their leader lacks the capacity to build a party.
He said: “Our state belong to PDP and the results of elections have shown this. We have demonstrated our capability during the past elections where we won three seats of the senate, five for the House of Representatives and 20 out of 22 declared seats for the State House of Assembly”.
