The campaign organisation of Senator Emmanuel Paulker, Renewal 2015, has slammed former President Goodluck Jonathan and the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party for shutting out Paulker from the Bayelsa State governorship race.
Paulker, a close ally of Jonathan, and a former Chairman of Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area, Chief Ebikitin Diongoli, were disqualified at the party’s zonal screening committee in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, last Saturday.
At the screening, only the incumbent governor, Seriake Dickson, was successfully cleared, leaving him as the sole contender for the governorship election coming up on December 5.
Addressing journalists at the Renewal 2015 office, the Director-General of the campaign organisation, Dr. Ayakeme Whisky, said the disqualification of Paulker was the culmination of some well “choreographed plots” by those who believed they could play God in the lives of men.
He said the campaign team was alarmed at the disqualification of Paulker on spurious allegations, one of which was that the senator did not attach his acceptable tax documents.
Whisky said the allegation was incredulous and laughable, wondering that a sitting senator, who ordinarily should have nothing barring him, should be whimsically disqualified by the same party that allowed him to represent it in a senatorial election barely six months ago.
He said Paulker had been in the senate for more than eight years and had been paying his taxes.
Whisky, who is also a member of an association within the party, the PDP Unity Group, said the campaign team was flustered by the seeming inability of the PDP to learn from its mistakes.
He noted that the woeful defeat of the PDP during the last presidential election was due to its total disrespect for internal democracy.
He regretted that while the main opposition party in the state, the All Progressives Congress, had thrown its door open to 19 aspirants, the PDP had closed the doors against all other aspirants, leaving Dickson as the sole candidate.
Whisky said, “We make bold to say that posterity will vindicate the just and history will punish the wicked.”
