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<\/p>\nLokpibiri said he had informed the President that he would contest the Bayelsa State governorship race instead.<\/p>\n
Lokpobiri said this in an interview on Channels TV, yesterday, adding that he has learnt a lot under President Buhari and was eager to become Bayelsa governor to replicate all he had learnt.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cI met the president a few days ago and I told him that I want to run for governorship in Bayelsa having thanked him for appointing me as a minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have learnt so much under him in the four years than what I learnt as a parliamentary for 12 years. I want to take that experience back home and see how we can build a Bayelsa beyond oil.<\/p>\n
\u201cSylva is not my godfather. When I was speaker in 1999 he (Sylva) was special assistant to Alamieyeseigha. When I came to the Senate, he became governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I must concede he came into APC and might have facilitated my appointment as minister but that does not make him my godfather. In 2007, when he got elected as governor, I got elected as Senator. In 2007, I was with Timi Alaibe and that was how I got the ticket.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2011, we worked together even when former president Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Seriake Dickson were fighting him. I worked for him and not Dickson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe APC governorship ticket would not divide us. As far as I am concerned, it is going to be a family affair. We might go into primaries and whoever wins would fly the party\u2019s flag and I believe I am going to win,\u201d he said.\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, has revealed that he had told President Muhammadu Buhari that he would not want to return as a Minister in his cabinet. Lokpibiri said he had informed the President that he would contest the Bayelsa State governorship race instead. Lokpobiri said this in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[41,12185,8002],"class_list":["post-121091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-buhari","tag-lokpobiri","tag-next-level"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/121092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}