Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
The embattled governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Mr. Tonye Cole, has denied that he was imposed as the party’s candidate for the 2023 governorship poll.
Cole said contrary to claims that a former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, imposed him on the Rivers APC as governorship candidate, he emerged in a keenly contested primary election.
He spoke against the backdrop that his alleged imposition may be responsible for an internal crisis that rocked the Rivers APC and resulted in the subsequent nullification of the primary election that produced him and other APC candidates for all elective positions in the state.
A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, last Wednesday nullified the primaries over the illegal exclusion of some members of the party as delegates.
The judgment was delivered in a case brought before the court by some members of the Rivers APC led by one George Orlu.
The development is reminiscent of a similar situation suffered by the Rivers APC in 2019 when the court nullified the parallel primary elections conducted by the party, leaving it without a candidate for any of the elective positions.
The court had barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognising any candidate of the APC for the 2019 general election in the state.
But speaking at the weekend during a live television programme, Cole according to TheWhistler, said the situation this time around is different as the Rivers APC held proper primary and provided a level-playing ground for all candidates to compete.
Reacting to the allegation of imposition, he said: “Four years ago, that was a political statement that was made and it was used as an excuse to cause the fight that divided us and cost us the ballot. But that was four years ago. A lot has changed in four years.
“People expected that I was going to disappear; I wasn’t going to be there anymore; I wasn’t going to be in politics. But this time around we had a very competitive process.
“I wasn’t going anywhere; I’ve chosen to remain; I have chosen to give 20 years of my life to politics; I have chosen to serve the people and I have chosen to be different. And so, what happened this time around was that we competed aggressively for this position and I came out through a competitive internal process.
“There is nobody in APC today that will say that I was imposed on them because they know how competitive it was.”
Two months after Cole emerged as Rivers APC governorship candidate, a former lawmaker representing Rivers South-East senatorial district, Magnus Abe, dumped the party.
Abe later joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and would be running as the party’s governorship candidate against Cole and Siminialayi Fubara of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), amongst others.
