Despite court cases, Tonye Cole trudges on

[FILE PHOTO] Tonye Cole of Sahara Group

Since the All Progressives Congress (APC) submitted his name as its candidate for the Rivers State governorship race, Mr. Tonye Cole has being crisscrossing the state with a unifying message of economic growth, security and upward mobility.

Though a court has nullified his emergence as the APC candidate and his party is plagued by divisive politics, Cole appeared resolved to press on with his political aspiration, while anxiously awaiting the amicable resolution of the crisis rocking the party.

Processes leading to the endorsement of Cole as the preferred choice of the minister of transport, Chibuike Amaechi, had been primary cause of the friction between factions of the party loyal to the minister and those on the side of another governorship aspirant, Senator Magnus Abe, who has proven in his own right that he cannot be ignored.

A party source told The Guardian that the emergence of Cole is nothing but the embodiment of patronage democracy and might set the stage for political upstarts, particularly business entrepreneurs of the state extraction to begin to capture state power.

As an estimated three million voters in Rivers State prepare to head to the polls to elect their next governor and state legislators, Cole, has been reaching out to various segments of the state to familiarise them with his own brand of politics.

He has embarked on a different style of campaign strange to the political class in the state. Whereas others just go to the local government area headquarters, he has been touring all the wards, familiarising himself with the people and as part of strategy to secure an electoral victory by convincing them that he will implement three strong social, economic needs of the people.

One of the political strategists in Cole’s campaign office, and former governorship aspirant, Tonye Princewill said with the commencement of the campaign season, Cole is ready, his message clear, the tools in place, the rest is the formalities.

Beside the APC’s internal wrangling, which might hurt her chances in the poll, waning public support for the APC led federal government at the state caused by economic failures are likely to negatively impact the party’s prospects in the 2019 general election.

If the PDP and Governor Nyesom Wike secure another emphatic mandate, then, the APC will be doomed.

During a recent sensitisation to one of PDP’s major strongholds Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area, Cole promised to revive the economy of communities if elected in 2019.

He pledged to run an all-inclusive administration where communities and the traditional institution will make input into the governance of the state.
 
“Our government will provide health centres, our government will build schools and our government will provide jobs for the youths. Our government will create jobs for women. We will work with women leaders to create jobs for our women”

While at Ndoni, the hometown of former governor, Peter Odili, Cole assured the people that if his party is elected into office it would oversee the completion of the state owned refinery.

“Your request for the completion of the refinery shows that the people of Ndoni are ready to be employed. Your request for the completion of the polytechnic shows that people of Ndoni see education as an important thing. Your request for an assess road will be attended to. We have heard your request and we will take it back with us. We are preparing a working document and all your requests will be part of that working document. God willing, if we are able to create the kind of wealth we believe we should create, then everything is possible. But it means that we have to work together to ensure that is done,” he said.

The APC nominee was among persons who visited the scene of a collapsed seven-storey building in Port Harcourt to empathise with the victims.

“It is not about government, politics or party; it is about human lives. I made calls to different companies yesterday, to bring in their equipment to save trapped survivors and dignify the dead. There is much that needs to be changed in Rivers,” he said.

As over fifty political parties intensify their campaign for votes, the APC will however need to foment sufficient anti-incumbent sentiment against Wike led government, which presently is not rampant.

Defeating Wike in a free contest will be a herculean task as he has followed through some of his campaign promises to various parts of the State.

PDP’s electoral slide in recent time, whether by hook or crook, began to manifest after the contentious legislative reruns when the party limped to a majority. The party’s electoral decline continued into 2018 when one of its senators defected to the APC. The APC will only rip PDP’s misfortune if it can put its house together.

Senator Abe’s faction however remains Cole and APC nemesis in their bid to wrest power from Wike in March 2019.

Abe has continued to insisted that with the judgment of the Rivers State High Court, all processes that flowed from the nullified congresses of the party in the state, including the indirect primaries conducted by the APC in the state are all illegal.
 
“At the end of the day, I am happy to announce that judgment in that case was delivered in favour of the claimant and the congresses of the party held in Rivers State and all the things that flows from that congresses, including the indirect primaries that were held by the party was voided and set aside by that judgment.

That judgment is now the subject matter of an intense legal battle at the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Judiciary and of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has already made a pronouncement validating the first order that made the congresses stand annulled. As far as we are concerned, that those congresses were not legally held in Rivers State, is no longer in dispute,” he said.

He has argued that while he is disposed to reconciliation, everybody is obligated to obey the judgment of the court unless it is set aside by a superior court. To that end, he said the judgment of the Rivers State High Court is the existing position of the party in the state.
 
“In the light of that fact, therefore, the candidates of the party who were elected in the direct congresses that were held by members in the state in which over 148,000 members of the APC across Rivers State voted for me and for other candidates remain the authentic candidates of the party,” he added.