Bayelsa Guber: Diri Warns against Complacency or Ridiculing APC

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Bayesla State Governor, Douye Diri, yesterday, cautioned his supporters not rely on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) victories in the Senate, House of Representatives and state assembly elections in the last election to affect their campaign strategies.
The PDP won the three senatorial seats, all five House of Representatives and seventeen out of twenty four seats in the State Assembly in the last general election.

Speaking at the inaugural meeting with members of the national campaign council, Douye warned against taking the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other political parties for granted.
“But there is a popular saying in my place that when a blind man tells you that he is going to stone you, it means that he is standing on top of a stone. So let us not take our opponents especially of the APC for granted. In Bayelsa, I will like to let you know that this election is across party line. So, we are not going there to deride APC.

“There are so many APC members who have come out openly to say yes in Abuja we are APC, but in Bayelsa we are PDP – leaders of APC. So, when we go for this campaign we should be seen to be accepting them.
“It is like everyone that has attested to, it is like 80-20 per cent election victory margin, but we will not take it for granted because somebody is boasting that whether the people like it or not, he is going to win. That means he is standing on a stone and we must remove that stone from under him, that is all that the PDP needs to do.

“I am not very sure that even the federal might that we use to know of, I am not sure that there will be any federal might for a candidate that has been roundly rejected by the people. The federal government is also not a government that will be anti democracy, the federal government will stand to defend democracy.
“We are in a democratic system and I believe that if we work well and we do not take it for granted, we have already won. It is not over until it is over.
“For those who are boosting that they will stone you, that they will win this election, they must be standing on something, let us look deeply and remove that stone that they are standing on and that is the only time we will coast home to victory.

“Working together – everybody with his own contribution, we may not be from Bayelsa State, but we are from the same country, you may know one person or the other to do one contribution,” the Bayelsa state governor cautioned.