The senator representing Bayelsa central senatorial district, Douye Diri, has been declared winner of the People’s Democratic Party governorship primaries in Bayelsa state.
Declaring the result on Wednesday morning, the chairman of the party’s electoral committee for the state and Governor of Taraba state, Darius Ishiaku, said Diri scored a total 561 votes to beat his closest rival, Timi Alaibe, who scored 365 votes, and 19 others.
Diri was the preferred candidate for the Governor Seriake Dickson-led restoration caucus.
Stakeholders from the eight local governments of the state had on Monday endorsed him ahead of the primaries on Tuesday.
Diri was a member of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019, where he represented the people of Yenagoa/Kolokuma/Opokuma federal constituency of the state, before he was elected as the senator representing Bayelsa central senatorial district during the 2019 general election.
He is a close ally of Dickson, who is poised to ensure that somebody from his political family, ‘Restoration Caucus’ emerges as his successor, different from ‘Green movement’ that brought him as a governor in 2012.
