Seriake Dickson, Bayelsa
governor, says the state spends about N6 billion annually to service 1,500
political service holders.
NAN quoted the governor as saying
this on a radio programme.
An analysis of the oil-rich
state’s 2019 budget by TheCable shows that the budget for the entire health
sector is N6 billion.
According to Dickson, the huge
“political capital” investment is responsible for the high number of Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirants in the state.
Dickson, who has been governing
Bayelsa on the mantle of the PDP since 2012,
explained that the opposition party had invested the money to sustain
its loyalists appointed to serve in his administration.
He said 21 aspirants had
collected and returned the party’s expression of interest and nomination forms
at N21 million each.
The party’s primary election is
scheduled to hold on September 2, ahead of the November 16 governorship
election in the state.
“The party leadership decided to
make the contest open and all-embracing and as a consensus builder, I believe
that every aspiration is legitimate, it is a right that they have to test their
popularity at the primaries,” Dickson said.
“The large number of aspirants is
an indication that the party is a platform of choice for any politician to
actualize his governorship ambition and looking at the rival party, they don’t
have up to two aspirants.
“Nothing is happening there, the
PDP is taking the shine and it is all happening because of the political
capital we invested in building the party, if I lost my re-election in 2015,
the party would have been dead by now in Bayelsa.”
In March 2019, Dickson signed
N299bn for the fiscal year.
Presenting the appropriation bill
in December 2018 to the state house of assembly, the governor had said that
about N23 billion was earmarked for education while N6 billion was proposed for
the health sector.
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