The governorship candidate of the All-Progressives Congress for Rivers State, Tonye Cole, says he was attacked on Monday by political thugs who obstructed him from gaining access into the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Port Harcourt.
In an interview with ARISE News on Monday, Tonye Cole said, “I’ve never been as ashamed as I am of Rivers State as I saw today.”
He claimed that although he had heard that thugs were mobilized by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to prevent them from accessing INEC, he and his team decided that he would go ahead to INECs office with the Party Chairman, the Woman Leader and the Youth Leader, in order to retrieve the party’s Certified True Copy (CTC) documents.
However, on getting to INEC Officer, they were met by the alleged PDP supporters. He said, “We get there, the next minute, they are standing in front of me and telling me that they are going to arrest me, and they are not going to allow me to get in and I should get back.” He then claimed that he was physically assaulted and his entourage was attacked, “They began to throw stones, they destroyed our vehicles.” He then said that his security detail had to pull him an his team out of the area, back to APCs Office, where they were met with more violence.
The APC candidate then said that he would be going back for his document, saying, “It is our document. INEC is a public office…
“I intend to go back to INEC office and collect my document today, and when I go back, I hope that the Nigerian police force would have done what id right to ensure that I can execute my duty as a leading politician in Rivers State to collect documents that belong to me which are in the custody of INEC.”
When asked on the next steps he would take if he was still unable to retrieve the CTC, he said that he would then approach the INEC Chairman in Abuja in a bid to retrieve the document.
Speaking on the state of violence in Rivers State, and how he planned to combat it if he eventually won his case with the tribunal to become the appointed governor, he said, “If you as the head are willing to carry cutlasses and tell everybody that this cutlass is going to be used against your opponents, then you have already set the tone for what type of government you will have.
“Those people who follow me will change. We need peace in Rivers State, we need development, we need investments, we need people to come back and talk about Rivers State positively.
“It must change, and so I bring that change and this is what Rivers State is looking for,” he said.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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