The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Mr. Tonye Cole has cried out to everyone that cares to listen.
For those who don’t know, Tonye Cole alongside the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Emeka Beke and other leaders of the party in the state were attacked by thugs alleged to be supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recently.
However, Cole, speaking on the attack, said: “INEC has number of days to release documents to us and we have 21 days for us to file our petitions. Forteen days after the election, today is the 16th day after the declaration but INEC has not released any single document to us.”
“On Friday, we went to INEC office and we met only junior officers there. When we got there, we asked them, they said we should come back that we will receive our documents.”
“This morning while we were going, we met a large number of boys and girls outside the INEC office, who said they were PDP members and that nobody will come here except them. They said I should go back else they will embarrass me.”
“I refused and they began to slap me, they grabbed my shirt and started throwing pure water at us. Before I knew it, they started throwing blocks, bottles.”
“My secuity men determined that I must come out, physically carried me out. I got a serious injury on my shoulder, three of our vehicles were destroyed. Democracy in this state is a disgrace.”
“We left INEC office and came back to our party secretariat, so that we can restrategise. We saw lots of PDP thugs led by Ikwerre Local Government Chairman and the Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly, coming here with armed boys escorted by policemen.”
“They came and started shooting outside our party office, our policemen came and pushed them back. I came out that if they are going to kill me, that they should do it.”
“We had credible information that they are going to be mobilising like this everyday till Friday and by Friday, we will be out of time.”
“They are trying to prevent us from filing our documents. These are people that said they won by popularity, why are they stopping us.”
“We have credible information that they hijacked this election and do not want us to go to the tribunal.”
