How APC plans to rig Dec 5 Bayelsa governorship poll – PDP

Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Bayelsa State has attrbuted the transfer of the state Director of the Department of State Services, DSS, Bassaleg Al-Hassan and the state Commissioner of Police, Paul Okafor from Bayelsa to plots by the All Progressives Congress, APC-led federal government to rig the December 5 governorship election.

While the Police Commissioner, Paul Okafor, was reportedly transferred last month, the Director of DSS in the state was transferred recently.


Chairman of the state chapter of the PDP, Chief Serena Dokubo-Spiff, said the removal of the Police commissioner after a similar transfer of the state Director of DSS, Baba Alhassan, a month to the election, raised questions about the motives for such actions.

But in a swift reaction to the allegations, the state Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mr. Fortune Paniebi, while dismissing the allegation as laughable, said the PDP ordinarily should have nothing to fear ahead of the December 5 governorship election if they were ready, stressing that the transfers of the heads of security agencies in the state were purely the prerogative of the agencies.

Paniebi said: “There is no relationship between the transfers of these men with the increasing rate in criminal activities because crime has always been on the increase even before their transfers. So far as I know, there was no petition by the APC against these people. Their postings are purely the prerogative of the agencies. The PDP is merely crying foul and making excuses and this implies that they are not ready for the polls.”

However, Dokubo-Spiff who condemned the transfer of the two security chiefs, in a statement in Yenagoa, described them as well experienced officers who understood the terrain of the state so well, claiming that the decision to transfer them was “unwise and curious” at this period in the state.