![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Deputy-Governor-others-join-Bayelsa-guber-race.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe aspirants, who are cabinet members of the incumbent administration of Gov. Seriake Dickson, on Thursday obtained their expression of interest and nomination forms at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National headquarters in Abuja.<\/p>\n
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three aspirants are also members of the Bayelsa Restoration Government, a political movement led by Dickson.<\/p>\n
Jonah speaking with newsmen after obtaining his forms, denied the insinuation that there was crack in the group.<\/p>\n
He said the group and the PDP in Bayelsa were ever united, saying the movement actually opened the race to whoever that was interested.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no crack, if there is anything there is cohesion within the restoration family.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were expecting that by this time the governor will bring one candidate and say this is my candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact they are speculating that others will not be allowed to show interest and they will be forced to just withdraw.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can bring cracks, but in the thinking of the administration collectively we have to note that it is not just the governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt that those that have interest and with capacity to administer the state should show interest and we proceed from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther modalities will be worked out and at the end we go for primary.<\/p>\n
\u201dIt is the primary that will decide who becomes the candidate. All we are doing is to show that we are interested so there are no cracks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jonah said that his driving force was his passion for service to the people and to delivering development to the state.<\/p>\n
Jonah, who said that Dickson, in line with the vision of the restoration government had developed the state, pledged to improve on the achievements of the incumbent, if elected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you love the state you will not change the vision; we will develop infrastructure; we have set all the basic foundation there; all we will do is to start building from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will go to the critical mass, health, ensure no civil servant pays for treatment, the health insurance scheme, other states are going to study it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go to schools, public schools, there is free accommodation, free feeding. These are two critical areas if you want to develop your state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ongolo and Okara also affirmed that obtaining nomination forms by other members of the movement was not an indication of a crack, saying they were united.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a party affair, and only PDP has the capacity to deliver Bayelsa in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cBayelsa is a PDP state, and we are stronger than ever before,\u201d they said<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, John Jonah, the Secretary to the State Government, Kemela Okara, and Chief of Staff to the Governor, Talford Ongolo, have joined the race for the state governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. The aspirants, who are cabinet members of the incumbent administration of Gov. Seriake Dickson, on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135012,"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":[1154,58],"class_list":["post-135011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-bayelsa","tag-pdp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135011","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=135011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/135012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}