Labour Party Will Win In Bayelsa State

As its principal officially emerged the flag-bearer of the Labour Party for the 2011 elections in Bayelsa State, the Timi Alaibe Campaign Organisation has boasted that the LP will win the governorship election in Bayelsa State.

It said the LP will win the election because the ruling People’s Democratic Party-led government in the state has been unleashing misery and poverty on the citizens since the past four years and they could no longer bear it.

Alaibe was returned unopposed in the party’s governorship primary election held at the LP Secretariat in Yenizue-Gene, Yenagoa.
Condemning the chocking atmosphere the Governor Timipre Sylva administration had imposed on the citizens in the state; Alaibe said “every well-meaning Bayelsan feels some shame when he or she thinks of how the state has been misgoverned.”

Bayelsa, he said, was now being suffocated with a debt burden of over N100billion, adding that he would ensure the state was rescued from the shackles of retrogression when he emerges Governor on 29 May, 2011.

The LP governorship candidate said his economic programme for the state would focus security, social harmony, education and skill acquisition as well as health care, among others for the rapid development of the state.

Already, Alaibe has constituted the structure of his campaign organisation with one-time Secretary to the State Government of old Rivers State , Senator Inatimi Rufus-Spiff as Director of Campaigns while a former Commissioner in the state, Fyneman Wilson is the Chairman, State Caucus.

Others in the team are Deputy Director of Campaigns, Talford Ongolo, Director of Mobilization, Bernard Agai, Director of Finance, Stan Abali, Director of Transportation, Okuro James, Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Pogoyo Bomoyo, Director of Legal Matters, Famous Panowei and Director of Media and Publicity, Douye Diri.

Diri, who announced the constitution of the campaign structure to journalists at Opokuma in Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area, said that although Bayelsa had earned huge allocations from the federation account in the past few years, the present administration had squandered the revenues on frivolities in the name of governance.

Diri noted with regrets that Bayelsa was at the lowest ebb among the comity of states, submitting that the people were tired of the downward slide and were ready to make a change through the ballot box in April.
Expressing belief that the campaign structure would deliver on its mandate, Diri said Alaibe had all it takes to cause the needed change in the state.

Diri said by this development, the campaign organization would henceforth cease to operate from Opokuma and begin operations from its secretariat in the old PDP Secretariat building at Yenizue-Gene, a suburb of the state capital.
Speaking, the Director of Campaigns, Inatimi Rufus-Spiff said the state was adrift because it was governed by a purposeless administration, adding that the soul of the state was weeping for change.

“That’s why we have accepted to work with Timi Alaibe to effect a change. Go through the streets of Yenagoa, you’ll see the people crying for change. Bayelsa State has been reduced to a mere local government area. If you see what they are doing in Government House, Yenagoa, you’ll weep. We don’t deserve it, Inatimi added.

He said he was grateful to God that a rescue team was now here to pull the state out of the woods and called on the people of the state to line up behind Alaibe to transform the state.

Meanwhile, the Timi Alaibe Campaign Organization has received a letter from the state chapter of Congress for Progressive Change adopting Alaibe’s candidature for the election.
“For us, it has added more feathers to the cap of our credible candidate for the election”, said Diri who announced it to journalists in Opokuma.

Giving reasons for the move, the state Chairman of CPC, Akpos Whyte, said the party pledged unalloyed support to the LP candidate because he was credible and eminently qualified.

Akpos said the decision was arrived at after wide consultations which culminated in a meeting involving the state executive committee, local government and ward officials of the CPC.

According to him, Bayelsa was in shambles and required a man of Alaibe’s status to rescue it from the path of underdevelopment.