•Rivers APC Guber Candidate, TONYE PATRICK COLE
The race is on for who will succeed Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State but the APC in the state seems not to be having it easy as a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has again disqualified the Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. Of course, we’re referring to Tonye Patrick Cole over alleged dual citizenship and non-compliance with the Electoral Act by his party. Recall that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state had filed a suit asking the court to direct the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to recognize Cole as the Governorship candidate of the APC for alleged dual citizenship. The PDP has alleged that the APC delegates’ election that gave Cole the party ticket did not follow due process, hence, the judgment passed by Justice Emmanuel Obile, who agreed with the suit by the PDP, adding that the APC primary that brought in Cole was not monitored by INEC. Tonye Patrick Cole sheds more light on this whole controversy in an interview he granted Breakfast Central, a morning program on News Central TV in Lagos.
In your recent tweet, you made a statement. You said: ‘My resolve to serve the people of Rivers State as their governor is not broken. We shall overcome all obstacles. It wouldn’t be a historic tale if it was easy and straight-forward’, meaning that the race is not yet over.
Far from over.
So, talk to us about this.
So, we’re at the first stage. This is the tribunal and Rivers State Federal High Court, after this, we’ll go to the Appeal and then we’ll go to the Supreme Court. One of the things that we’ve found in Nigerian politics, may be because it’s evolving is that almost everything you do in politics in Nigeria is fought at the judiciary. Interpretation of laws, interpretation of the Electoral Acts, what INEC does, so, everything goes to the judiciary, which means that the burden on the Judiciary is extremely high at this point in time. So, that’s where we are. Until the Supreme Court determines this, it’s not over, we’ll continue.
So, the PDP is claiming in their suit that you have dual citizenship and that the process by which you were elected as APC gubernatorial candidate was not constitutional. Can you shed some light on this?
The issue of dual citizenship is something that has been on the table since the Obasanjo days and there have been clarifications from Bukola Saraki to even Adeleke, who’s been sworn in today. So, you’ve had governors with dual citizenship, there are people who’re serving in the National Assembly today with dual citizenship. So, it’s not an issue in Nigeria. People have had to deal with it. We’ve had to look at it and what the constitution says about it is clear but lawyers still have to test the constitution, they have to test the Electoral Act, and that’s what the lawyers do. However, as a Nigerian citizen, born in Nigeria and all of that, my rights are absolutely clear that I can run for governor. I also believe that in our current situation, one of the things Nigeria needs is to be able to open the space to our diasporans to come and begin to actively build this country. You cannot isolate anyone in building Nigeria. We have to bring many people into this space, especially, in the political space, we need everyone.
In 2019, the APC had similar challenges fielding a candidate for the elections. In 2023, pretty much the same thing is happening but I’m sure you might also have questions as regards the popularity of the APC in Rivers State as a party and the popularity of the party nationwide. What would be your convincing perspectives to the people of Rivers State to vote in an APC Government?
So, two things. Every politics at the end of the day is very local. One of the things we can state while going into this election is going ward to ward, grass root politics and looking at the sentiments of the people at the grassroots in Rivers State. It’s not what you see on the TV but really how the people feel and one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that Rivers people are tired and they want change. What are the things they’re tired about? The first aspect of it is human capital development. We have seen an extreme increase of poverty in Rivers Sate that’s unprecedented. And this has caused people to seek for an alternative. We’ve had a government in Rivers State since 1999, one party system since 1999 till date and people look at their lives over this entire period and they see that it’s just been yoyo, it goes up and comes down. it goes up and comes down. People want to see a progression, even if it’s incremental. And so this is the time to try something different. What do we bring to the table? First, we bring hope, we bring hope that you can get up and actually do business without having to know government. The challenge is that in Rivers State today the only employer of anything is government. Everywhere, the Rivers man is only hoping on the government. We’re hoping to change that.
Do you have fears that the APC candidates would be delisted and not appear on the ballot papers in the 2023 elections just as it happened in 2019?
No because the situation is different this time around, it might seem the same in terms of headlines but it’s absolutely different in terms of facts. In 2019, the biggest challenge we had was internal. We had people in the APC actively working against the APC and ensuring that that house that was totally divided would not stand. And truly, if you have a house that’s fighting itself on the inside, no matter what you do, it’s going to crumble. And so, we found ourselves in 2019 fighting an internal battle and it spilled onto the outside. This time around, it’s totally different, all of those who were inside, who were causing the problems on the inside, have left. And so we have an APC that’s stronger, an APC that’s more focused and an APC that can overcome the odds, which is why I’m extremely confident that one of the big things we see the opposition PDP doing is working to have APC candidates disqualified. They’re actually afraid of APC being on the ballot. This time around, the plan will fail. APC will be on the ballot and we will win this election.
Let’ talk about the G5 I’d like to find out what your thought are about the G5 governors. Tell us what you think seeing as they’re divided and the G5 governors have pulled out from the Integrity Group. Do you think that this might in any way affect your chances as the Governorship candidate of the APC and also, do you forsee that they’d be able to resolve their internal crisis?
What I see for APC is that this is a huge blessing for us. We have been through the route they’re going down, and it cost us the governorship, it cost us so much. No one is learning from history. So, the first aspect of it is, as the G5 is internal and causing lots of problems within themselves. In Rivers State in particular, one of the things you see is that there is a candidate for the PDP that is causing them big problems, the PDP is divided. Nyesom Wike as the governor is totalitarian and is causing a division in the party. There’s a breakaway faction there. And that would only play to our advantage and we intend to use it. But, to do that, we have to be on the ballot, and so, one of the things that they’re trying to ensure is that we’re not on the ballot, but, we would be on the ballot to expose those cracks.
Governor Wike was given an award by President Muhammadu Buhari for the infrastructural works he’s been able to do in Rivers State. Are you then saying that the people of Rivers State are not seeing the benefits of those infrastructural developments put in place by the governor and they would still want to change government by picking an APC government?
Absolutely! And the reason is very simple. Once you understand the dynamics and the geo-politics within Rivers State local, the first thing you’d see is that the infrastructure we’re talking about, to a large extent, has happened within one local government! We have 23 local governments and when you concentrate everything in one local government, you begin to understand the sentiments you’re causing.
Secondly, all the other local governments you’re looking at haven’t benefitted at all human capital development. Thirdly, most of the infrastructural projects we’re talking about are overhead bridges, 10 of which are in one local government! Infrastructure like the Law School and all of that are in the same local government. Which local government are we talking about? And you find out the local government is the governor’s local government then you begin to see where the problem is. Once you move outside of this, an hour’s drive, 20 minutes’ drive, just move outside of the perimeters of Port Harcourt, of Obio-Akpor and you begin to see that people are poor, people are desperate. And finally, when you talk about overhead bridges, you begin to ask the question, what’s the economic value of an overhead bridge and how has it impacted the lives of the people in the locality where it is? You see where the problem is. We have big problems in Rivers State.
Do you worry about the widespread assumption that former Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi foisted you on the party (even though you’ve come out to clarify the situation severally) would affect your chances?
Not at all! It won’t affect my chances in any way. What I see about this is that in a bid to hide that they’re doing worse, they’re flaunting this assumption which I have come out to clarify severally. Now, there’s a candidate called SIM, nobody sees him, nobody hears about him. All we hear about is Wike. The problem with that is, the imposition of a candidate that has been brought out by the PDP, so the only way to cover this is, to see if you can point the light elsewhere. A N117 billion was withdrawn over the counter by this one man. This candidate from PDP, over the counter, withdrawn, EFCC has him wanted, CCB has called for him to show up, he has all sorts of integrity issues. In my case, it was very clear and I said the public had pure access to any of the records. It was Access Bank and you have records. Access Bank is a publicly quoted company; any shareholder can go there and demand for the records. So, I never hid it, I just said go there and look at the records; I’m absolutely clear that we have nothing to worry about. And at the end of the day, they took it to court, and they found out that they were going to lose the case, because the records were there, they pulled out, the case was struck out, so, I’m clear completely of integrity issues. I would like the candidate, my opponent in the PDP clear his name by going to the CCB, the EFCC, voluntarily submitting himself to any kind of record, the way I’ve submitted myself and let’s see who at the end of the day has integrity issues.
What are your plans for Rivers State?
I think the high point of everything is that Rivers State has capacity of being what you would call a nation within a nation. Today, you see Lagos and it stands out in Nigeria. Rivers State can better Lagos. It has the infrastructure, it has the people, it has the money, it has the intellect to do so. So, the first thing for me is to ensure that we put the framework that allows Rivers State to not just compete with Lagos but to overtake Lagos but to do that, we need to make sure we provide social welfare. We need to diversify to make sure we have infrastructure development across board. To do all these, we need to have social security, we need to have Law and Order, we must make sure that businesses are comfortable in Rivers State and live peacefully in Rivers State.
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