Inokoba was celebrated by the APC as a sitting State Chairman who was disenchanted with the way the state was being run by the Governor Seriake Dickson administration and had decided, with other chieftains in tow, to join the change train of the APC.
But a media aide to Dickson, Francis Agbo, while reacting to the APC claim, said Inokoba had long ceased to be the Chairman of Bayelsa PDP before he defected to the APC and should not have been addressed as a “sitting chairman”.
Speaking with The Guardian on the matter, Agbo said, “first, the State Working Committee (SWC) of the PDP had suspended him on issues concerning funds released to the state branch of the party to prosecute the presidential election.
“Inokoba wrote the NWC of PDP and went to a Federal High Court to stop his removal and lost in his bid. The court stopped him from parading himself as the Chairman of the State PDP. All of these happened between January and May.
“Finally, the PDP National Secretariat set up a reconciliation committee headed by its acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BOT), Dr. Haliru Bello. The committee arrived Yenagoa on the 29th of July and reconciled aggrieved party members with the governor.
“All those expelled or suspended for anti-party activities in the State Assembly elections were pardoned and readmitted but Inokoba’s suspension was upheld and the PDP National Secretariat removed him and replaced him with his Deputy, Chief Serena Dokubo as Acting State Chairman of the party. And on the first week of August, precisely on the 5th, a formal letter of his removal was served on him. He joined the APC on the 15th.
“So Inokoba was no longer the Chairman of the PDP at the time he defected to the APC. Those who claim that a sitting chairman of the PDP joined the APC are being mischievous.”
