Bayelsa State Should Not Be As Backward As It Is Now – David Lyon

The All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate in Bayelsa State, David Lyon, has come out to say that the social conditions of the people and their communities should not be as poor as it is right now.

According to David, the state should not be so backward and underdeveloped with the massive revenues Bayelsa has gotten from the federation account since 2011.

He said this during the APC campaign visit to Egbemo-Angalabiri, Peretorugbene and Toru-Ndoro communities in Ekeremor Local Government Area.

Lyon believes the people are suffering because Governor Seriake Dickson and people in his government have “failed to protect and invest the commonwealth of the people on profit-generating projects, thereby causing the people to live from hand to mouth.”

He said the level of development in the communities did not show the real nature of the contributions they had put into the wealth and growth of Nigeria as oil-producing areas.

If elected, he said he would “protect the crude oil wealth of the state from the activities of pipeline vandals and crude oil thieves.”

He also vowed to make sure all local communities were captured in the Global Memorandum of Understanding of multinational oil corporations operating in the area.

Should he be given a chance?

The All Progressives Congress (APC) is a political party in Nigeria, formed on 6 February 2013 in anticipation of the 2015 elections. APC candidate Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election by almost 2.6 million votes. Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat on 31 March. This was the first time in Nigeria’s political history that an opposition political party unseated a governing party in a general election and one in which power transferred peacefully from one political party to another. In addition, the APC won the majority of seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2015 elections, though it fell shy of winning a super-majority to override the ability of the opposition People’s Democratic Party to block legislation.

Formed in February 2013, the party is the result of a merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP – a faction of then ruling People’s Democratic Party. The resolution was signed by Tom Ikimi, who represented the ACN; Senator Annie Okonkwo on behalf of the APGA; Ibrahim Shekarau, the Chairman of ANPP’s Merger Committee; and Garba Shehu, the Chairman of CPC’s Merger Committee. Ironically, less than 2 years before the party’s historic victory in the 2015 elections, Messrs. Annie Okonkwo, Tom Ikimi and Ibrahim Shekarau resigned from the party and joined the PDP.

The APC is generally considered to be a centre-left political party that favors controlled market economic policies, and a strong and active role for government regulation. A substantial number of its political leaders are followers of or politicians who subscribe to the social democratic political philosophy of Obafemi Awolowo and the socialist and anti-class views of Aminu Kano. Moreover, the majority of the APC’s base of political support is in southwestern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by the country’s largest ethnic groups, the Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani, respectively.

The APC support state’s rights, advancing state police as part of its manifesto. Its social policy is a combination of social nationalism. Despite the parties’ domination by pro-devolution politicians like Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, the party’s presidential bearer and the CPC wing is less inclined to federalism.