Supporters of the immediate past Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, have intensified campaign for his senatorial ambition.
Dickson is one of those reportedly nursing the ambition to contest in the forthcoming by-election in Bayelsa West Senatorial District.
But Dickson, whose party under his leadership, the PDP, lost to the APC and its candidate, Chief David Lyon, during the November 16, 2019, governorship election in the state, if not for the Supreme Court that ruled in favour of the PDP, is banking on the sponsorship and blessing of Gov. Douye Diri to clinch the senatorial seat in Bayelsa West.
His supporters have since started campaign and public endorsement not minding the health situation in the country occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19.
Several groups, including Ekeremor Local Government Ward 10, Ijaw leaders and stakeholders and his Sagbama Local Government Area stakeholders have endorsed Dickson as their preferred candidate for the seat.
Although the main opposition party in the state, the APC, and its avalanche of followers, is strategising on how to give Dickson his final political blow, his supporters are also of the opinion that as a former member of the House of Representatives and the immediate past governor, he is the voice of the Ijaw Nation.
Three human rights organisations have endorsed the Senatorial bid of Dickson to represent Bayelsa West Senatorial District.
Spokesman of the three rights groups, Barr. Inamuna Lamech, said the endorsement was long overdue on the strength of the fact that the former governor had demonstrated “rare leadership qualities” in the service of Bayelsa State, the Ijaw Nation and the country at large.
Already, stakeholders from Agbere Ward 1 in Sagbama have urged him to contest for the vacant Bayelsa West Senate seat.
Rising from a meeting held in the home of a former Commissioner for Finance in the state, Mr. Maxwell Ebibai, the Agbere indigenes said the former governor’s track record of outstanding service to the Ijaw Nation and Bayelsa placed him in good stead to represent the zone in the senate.
Some prominent Ijaw leaders, including Alhaji Asari Dokubo, and chieftains of both the Ijaw National Congress (INC) and the Ijaw Youths Congress (IYC), have not been left out in the endorsement galore for Dickson.
The endorsement by the pan-Ijaw socio-political groups is said to have cut across party divides, and is said to be informed by the need of the Ijaw Nation to send their best to represent them at the national level.
