Former President of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide, Udengs Eradiri, has cautioned Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State against making public comments that could disrupt the political understanding around Bayelsa State’s governorship rotation.

Eradiri, who was the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the 2023 governorship election, reacted on Friday to reports quoting Diri as saying the next governor could emerge from either Bayelsa East or Bayelsa West Senatorial District.

He described such a position as capable of creating “unnecessary political tension” ahead of the 2027 elections.

Eradiri laid out what he called the “natural rotation” among Bayelsa’s three senatorial districts.

He revealed that Bayelsa Central currently occupies the governorship through Diri, whose second term ends in 2027, while Bayelsa West held the governorship for a full 8 years under Seriake Dickson from 2012 to 2020, and produced the deputy governor for another 8 years.

Bayelsa East has produced two governors who were Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, 1999-2005, and Goodluck Jonathan, 2005-2007.

However, Eradiri noted that the district has not collectively completed 8 years in office, since Jonathan left mid-term to become Vice President.

“So it is naturally the East that the pendulum is swinging to,” Eradiri said.

Although he hails from Bayelsa Central, Eradiri faulted arguments from the West pushing a local government-based zoning formula.

If LGs were the basis, he argued, Yenagoa Local Government Area should have the strongest moral claim as host of the state capital.

“Yenagoa has not received the level of political recognition and development it deserves because it has yet to produce a governor since the creation of the state,” he said.

Despite that, he maintained that the broader senatorial arrangement still favours the East.

Eradiri stressed that most political stakeholders in Bayelsa had already conceded that 2027 is the East’s turn. He warned that Diri’s position as “political leader of the state” means his words will be taken seriously in an already charged atmosphere.

“When the governor, who is our political leader, begins to sit in the middle, then it becomes a recipe for chaos,” he said.

According to him, reopening the debate could embolden aspirants from the West and force politicians who had aligned with the East’s turn to reconsider their positions and ambitions. That, he said, would only heat up the polity two years before the election.

Recall that Bayelsa State has operated an unwritten power rotation agreement across Central, West, and East since 1999. With Central now rounding off its tenure under Diri, and West having just completed 8 years under Dickson.

The expectation in many quarters is that the East should produce the next governor to maintain balance.