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The Governor of Bayelsa State, Mr Seriake Dickson, has said leaders of the All Progressives Congress are using the image of former President Goodluck Jonathan to give legitimacy to the alleged electoral fraud the party committed during the just-concluded governorship election in the state.
        Dickson, who stated this during a press conference in Yenagoa on Tuesday, said the move was a strategy designed by the APC leaders to justify the irregularities and the takeover of Bayelsa “by force.” Some APC leaders, including the governor-elect, David Lyon, Governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru, Governor of Kebbi State Atiku Bagudu and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipreye Sylva, had visited Jonathan after the APC defeated the PDP in the Bayelsa governorship election. But Dickson said the APC leaders were aware that Jonathan did not contribute to their manipulation of the electoral process to gain the upper hand against the PDP. The governor said, “That’s why they had to be taking David Lyon to him (Jonathan). They had to be talking about him, they had to visit him and appear to be celebrating a victory never earned. Like Pontius Pilate, they are preparing the window by which they will wash their hands strategically, and put it at his (Jonathan) doorstep; that he endorsed, sanctioned (and) legitimised it. That’s the game they are playing,” he added.
        Dickson, who stated that he had “implicit confidence” in the judiciary to deliver justice on the pre-election related cases filed before it, called on the people to show restraint and not resort to violence. Meanwhile, the PDP, on Tuesday, disowned a report that Jonathan risked suspension over the party’s defeat. The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in an interview with one of our correspondents said he was unaware of any plan by the party to suspend Jonathan. Ologbondiyan said, “I am not aware (that Jonathan faces suspension). I am not aware that the PDP is planning anything like that.”