Rivers APC unveils Tonye Cole as candidate ahead of governorship polls

After the screening of 12 aspirants by 19 party leaders, the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has announced Tonye Cole as its consensus governorship aspirant.

This is according to a statement issued by Chief Chris Finebone, the party’s Publicity Secretary in Rivers, on Monday in Port Harcourt.

“It must be stated that the leadership of APC in Rivers, consisting of 19 leaders met last Friday and chose a consensus aspirant of riverine extraction to contest the governorship primaries for the 2023 elections.

“The exercise took place in the absence of Minister of Transportation, Mr Chibuike Amaechi, who declined to participate in the process.

“After a thorough scrutiny of all the aspirants, Arc Tonye Cole was chosen as he scored the highest vote among the 12 aspirants that participated,” the statement said.

Finebone further noted that the party remained committed to its former position of supporting the election of a riverine governor after 24 years of upland governorship.

“All party faithful are implored to continue to go about their activities with decorum and peacefully as the next four weeks are bound to be busy and packed full with political activities,” it said.

The statement said that the overwhelming interest shown by a cross section of Rivers people, Nigerians and particularly the media on the emergence of Cole needed clarification.

“The process was an otherwise internal mechanism activated on April 22 to pick a consensus aspirant of riverine extraction for the 2023 governorship election in Rivers by the APC.

“It has become expedient and highly necessary to provide clarification to all; this is expected to clear all doubts and provide a clear summary of what happened,” the statement concluded.