Bayelsa: Jonathan Revealed What Would Have Happened Had Diri Lost Re-election

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that he would have had no choice but to relocate his mother from Bayelsa State to Abuja if Governor Douye Diri had lost his reelection bid in the just concluded Bayelsa State governorship off-cycle election.

The Matrix recalls that Diri had at the November 11, 2023, guber poll defeated his opponent from the ruling All-Progressives Congress (APC), former Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva to clich re-election.

Reacting to Diri’s victory while visiting the governor in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, Jonathan said Diri’s victory means Bayelsa State will be safer with the governor’s determination to tackle insecurity.

The former president said the gains of tackling insecurity in the state would have been lost if Diri was defeated.

Jonathan said: “We don’t want to go into an unnecessary crisis in the state. Results have been declared and we believe the election was conducted.

“We believe the governor won the election and we plead that people should accept it and work with the governor. Let all of us support him so that the state will move ahead.

“There should be nothing that will push the state backwards. We should think about the development of the state, starting with the issue of peace and security in the state. Within this last period, three years plus, there have been significant improvements in terms of cultism, kidnapping, and so on and so forth.

“I was saying before this election that if Diri lost this election, I would have relocated my mother to Abuja.