The Peoples Democratic Party Youth Network (PDPYN) on Wednesday blamed the large number of gubernatorial aspirants from the party on the ambition of former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Timi Alaibe.

The group called on the leadership of the PDP to display tact, caution and maturity to handle the sensitive issue of the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP in the November 16, governorship election in the state in order to avoid jeopardising the party’s chances in the election.

Secretary General of the PDPYN, Mr. James Oputin, said in a statement that a large number of aspirants unprecedented in the history of the PDP, have besieged the party to indicate interest in the governorship because of the ambition of Alaibe and his movement to the PDP.

According to him, the bitterness and growing disenchantment among the members of the Bayelsa PDP about the surreptitious bid to hand over the party to Alaibe was at the root of the incredibly high number of aspirants that have approached the PDP for the governorship ticket in Bayelsa.

He said the leaders of the PDP are coming out to contest for the gubernatorial ticket out of the anger and growing resistance against the bid to hand over the party to those who abandoned it.

Oputin said that former President Goodluck Jonathan, his wife, and the Rivers State Governor who are pushing to give the ticket to Alaibe should note that their actions would not do the party any good.

He said that an earlier warning by the PDPYN was only playing out in Bayelsa with the large number of aspirants defying even the financial blockade of N21 million to indicate interest in the party’s ticket in the election.

He urged the national leadership of the PDP to look into the complaints of the youths network that attempts to hand over the party structure to returnees of the APC who were defeated in 2015 would be resisted.

Oputin added that the glaring bid to rob Peter to pay Paul was one ill wind that would not do anybody any good.

He stressed that the PDP should not be its own enemy in the forthcoming election as was it implicitly wrong for some people to make the sacrifice to sustain the party for the past seven and a half years only for a group of people who abandoned it to reappear to wrest control of the party.

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