Lessons From PDP’s Loss In Bayelsa Guber Election

In the early hours of Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Mr David Lyon, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, winner of the November 16 gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State.
It was a contest fiercely fought particularly between the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. It was the first time since 1999, for an opposition party to uproot the PDP.
Before the election, there were signals that the PDP was going to lose. But the state governor, Mr Seriake Dickson, leader of the party in the state, had always boasted that it would be a tall dream for the APC to upstage his party.
There were reports that he made various mistakes and offended many stakeholders along the line. The processes that led to the emergence of Senator Douye Diri were not endorsed by the critical stakeholders, including a former president of the country, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who was said to have helped him get into the office in the first place.
There were reports that Dickson did not get the endorsement of Jonathan and other leaders of the party as he chose Diri as candidate of the party. Same was the case with the running mate, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo. Both Diri and Ewhrudjakpo are reported to be related to Dickson. He was reported to have single-handedly chosen all the local government chairmen, councilors and house of assembly candidates for the PDP in the state.
Issues like this were said to have angered the people, including the reported arrogance and effrontery of the governor. At some point, virtually everybody that stood with him defected to the APC. Even when there were glaring signals that the PDP was facing defeat, Dickson fired on and only tried to embark on fence mending activities when it was already late.
Now that the PDP has suffered a humiliating defeat in the hands of the APC, Dickson and the PDP may as well learn some lessons in humility and how