The agitation for the political control of Bayelsa State in 2016 thickened on Friday with a socio-political organisation, Bayelsa Democratic Forum (BDF), saying the belief by All Progressives Congress (APC) that President Muhammadu Buhari will unleash his federal might is a mere deception.

The organisation said the opposition has been desperate to take over power through the back door with a view to perpetrating fraud by conniving with ghost workers thereby having a bloated wage bill to the tune of N6 billion.

The BDF in a statement entitled ‘Bayelsa’s Squalid Nuisance’, issued from Yenagoa and signed by its chairman, Tari Wellington and Secretary-General, Ekpai Okurus, accused the Bayelsa Peoples Consultative Assembly (BPCA) and their collaborators of “blackmail and threatening to let all hell loose unless their insatiable demands are met.”

“A combination of the harsh economic realities as well as the recent loss of the Presidency by the PDP has opened up new opportunities for political adventurism by these persons who believe that President Muhammadu Buhari will unleash the federal might against the former President’s home state of Bayelsa.

“Such is their puny mentality and the narrowness of their thinking. They had long constituted obstacles to Bayelsa’s development and were known sponsors and promoters of a climate of vicious politics, thuggery and mindless militancy which gave Bayelsa a bad name.

“They want civil servants and their collaborators to perpetrate fraud including having ghost workers in their thousands and on several payrolls, thereby having a bloated wage bill to the tune of N6 billion per month as was the case before the government of the day took steps to have it reduced to N4 billion,” the group stressed.

•Photo shows Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa.

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