By Samuel Oyadongha
A grassroots pressure group, known as ‘Dickson Mata, Na Wa Mata’, has called on Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State to contest the West Senatorial District seat to represent the people of Sagbama and Ekeremor at the upper red chambers in the forthcoming elections.
A statement by the group’s coordinator, Frank Olotu, who expressed condolences to the Bayelsa first family over the demise of their matriarch, Madam Goldcoast Dickson, urged the governor to continue his good works of infrastructural development across the state as they are befitting legacies that stand the test of time and speak volumes of his leadership acumen.
Olotu opined that picking the Senate ticket would not deter the governor from completing his second four-year tenure as the people have more confidence in him than any one else as a senator-elect – without necessarily relinquishing his office as governor contrary speculations making the rounds in some quarters.
His words, “There is no law in the constitution barring an incumbent governor from being a senator-elect at the same time. So, the governor is legally on track to finish his tenure as governor if he clinches the Senate seat before taking his oath of inauguration at the Upper Red Chambers in 2020, seven months after other lawmakers.”
The group also decried the lack development in the Niger Delta region and attributed it to lack of effective representation at the National Assembly which they believe can be augmented if Dickson accepts the call to run for the Bayelsa West Senatorial ticket.
Olotu, a respected chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP and a key player in stakeholder in Ward IV and V in Ekeremor Constituency I, added, “we have to send people like Governor Dickson to the Senate to sponsor sound bills and make efficient laws that would benefit our people and the Niger Delta at large.”
The group in the statement also called on the Federal Government to publish the names of oil bloc owners in the country so that the public can hold them accountable for the neglect of host communities in the region.
“We call on the Federal Government to publish the list of oil bloc owners in the spirit of transparency and accountability to the nation,” the statement reads.
Listing the governor’s legacy projects to include the ongoing International Cargo Airport about to be inaugurated, the Sagbama-Ekeremor Road, the model boarding schools across the local government areas as well as the state-of-the-art health facilities doting the state, among others, that have impacted positively on the lives of the people of the state, the group maintained that the youths and women of Ekeremor are ever ready to roll out the drums in celebration of these laudable feats of the countryman governor.
The group also prayed that a leader with Dickson’s kind of charisma and intellect should be elected to continue his laudable legacies when he eventually leaves office at the expiration of his full tenure of eight years in 2020.
