Former Minister of State for Petroleum Timipre Sylva has won the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship ticket for Bayelsa State.

Sylva polled 52,061 votes to defeat five other contenders to win the governorship ticket at the party’s primary election conducted on Friday and Saturday.

The APC adopted the direct mode electoral system to hold the exercise in the 105 wards and eight local government areas of the state.

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A former militant leader, Joshua Macaiver came second with 2,078 votes while a former governor-elect on the platform of the APC in Bayelsa, David Lyon came third with 1,584 votes.

Also, Prof. Ongoebi Etebu scored 1,277 votes; Isikima Johnson 584 votes; and Festus Daumiebi polled 557 votes.

The chairman of the APC primary election committee for Bayelsa, Major General Ahmed Jibrin (retd.), declared the former governor as the winner of the exercise at the party’s secretariat in Yenagoa on Saturday.

He said, “With this result, Timipre Marlin Sylva, having scored the highest number of votes cast is hereby declared as the winner.

“By the power conferred on me by the APC National Working Committee, I declare Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva as the winner of this election.”

After declaring the result, the panel went further to conduct an affirmation exercise with five ad-hoc delegates from each of the 105 wards inside the party’s secretariat in the state capital to affirm the outcome of the process.

Recall that Sylva resigned his office in March to contest the Bayelsa governorship primaries of the APC.

He ruled the state from 2007 to 2012 on the platform of the PDP, but the party denied him a second-term ticket.

The former minister eventually defected to the APC and emerged as its governorship candidate in 2015 but he was defeated by the then-incumbent governor, Seriake Dickson of the PDP.