Dickson floors Sylva in polls

The Governor of Bayelsa state, Seriake Dickson, has been declared winner of the just concluded Bayelsa governorship supplementary elections.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returning officer for the election in the state, Prof. Zana Akpagu announced the results.

Declaring the results, Akpagu said “I wish to declare that Mr. Henry Seriake Dickson, with a total votes of 134,998, having satisfied the requirement of the law and scoring the highest votes, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected.”

According to Punch Newspapers, Dickson won the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva with 48,146 votes.

In his acceptance speech, Governor Dickson said “To the extent that the people ensured that they spoke loud and clear and that their choice clearly emerged provide some reassurance that our democracy is coming of age.

“Sadly, however, the elections were conducted at the price of several lives lost and mayhem visited on many communities by mindless brigands clearly suborned by those who do not respect the democratic process and have equally scant regard for the sanctity of lives and property.”

Adding that “Unfortunately, we can’t celebrate because people have died.

“I want to assure you that we will do everything possible to identify the culprits and bring them to justice. I want to express my heartfelt condolences and sympathy to the families of the innocent victims of the violence. The government will be undertaking a full accounting of what happened.”

“The mandate you have given us having been clearly demonstrated, I want to assure you that my administration will work tirelessly to justify this mandate as we tried to do in the first four years to almost universal acknowledgement and approbation,” Dickson said.

12 people were reportedly killed during the Bayelsa state supplementary election which held on Saturday, January 9, 2015.