From TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), in the March 18, 2023, governorship election in Rivers state, Tonye Cole, has been asked not to waste energy in challenging the outcome of the governorship election result at the tribunal, but rather clear himself of the allegations of ant-party activities he committed.
Leader of APC in Rivers State, Tony Okocha, threw the challenge on Saturday, in Port Harcourt, saying that Cole must rather concern himself with the issues of anti-party he committed before and during the past elections, which led to the woeful performance of APC in the state.
He said: “Cole has not challenged the burden of anti-party activities against him, during the presidential election on the February 25, 2023. It was in response to his anti-party that informed and infuriated the action of mainstream APC members who believed in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to sway support to the PDP governorship candidate (Siminalayi Fubara), in reciprocation of the Governor Nyesom Wike and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State.
Okocha enumerated reasons that may propel a party to withdraw its petition from the election tribunal without necessarily giving consideration to the governorship candidate.
He continued: “It is rare to have a party withdraw a petition and allow the petitioner to his fate. Many reasons abound. First, the party may have found it a waste of time and resources knowing that the grounds of challenge, are puny. Secondly, the party may have been irked too by the candidate’s infidelity to the party.
It would be recalled that on Monday, the state chapter of the party, said it had withdrawn its petition against the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the March 18, 2023, governorship election.
Worried by the withdrawal of the petition, the spokesman of Tonye Cole Campaign Organization, Sogbeye Eli, said the stories making the rounds of the withdrawal of the petition by Cole, 2023 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, were false.
Sogbeye Eli said in a statement that Tonye Cole, as the first petitioner on record is still before the court, saying that the All Progressives Congress as the second petitioner on record withdrew the petition through its legal representative, Solomon Umoh.
“The facts forming the grounds for the aforementioned objection bother on trust and are not unconnected with the concomitant effect of the decision of the High Court of Rivers State in the case of Ibrahim Umah & Ors v. APC in 2018 on the party’s fortunes at the 2019 general elections”
“It is an error of judgement, therefore, for Sahara Reporters, or any other medium, to present yesterday’s development with such slant that misleads the public to the conclusion that the petition challenging the declaration by INEC of the winner of the Rivers 2023 governorship election has been withdrawn. For emphasis sake, the party’s right to withdraw does not sound a death knell to the petition by Tonye Cole who is now the Sole Petitioner”
Before now, Okocha had accused former Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi of anti-party activities over his alleged support for Atiku Abubakar of PDP during the last presidential election rather than Bola Tinubu of APC.