The All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole has provided an explanation for his absence from President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s visit to commission projects in Rivers state.
Tonye Cole claimed on Thursday that Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state, completely refused to invite him to Tinubu’s visit and that’s why he wasn’t there.
This was said by the APC gubernatorial candidate during an interview on Arise TV on Thursday morning. He also noted that the party, the APC, was not invited to any of the events.
Part of his statement reads,
“I will describe the visit from two sides. First side of it is the President-elect. As a President-elect of Nigeria, he has the right to go anywhere. And the Rivers State Government invited him, and he has come, honoured that invitation, and has come to Rivers State as a President-elect; with that, we have no problem at all.”
According to Tonye Cole, Nyesom Wike should serve as the governor of all Rivers people by also alerting all APC members in the State that he is inviting the President-elect to the event and would like them to participate.
“Where the issue is that the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, ought also to be the governor of all Rivers people. And one of the things that he should have done if he is inviting the President-elect, who is the President-elect of all Nigerians, would have been to call us as APC in Rivers State to inform us that he is inviting the President-elect and would want us to be part of that programme.” – he said.
However, the Rivers APC Chieftain emphasized that neither the party nor he received a personal invitation.
“We never got any invitation, I was never invited personally, I was not invited in my private capacity as a candidate of the party, neither was our party, APC, in the State invited to any of those things” – he said.
Tonye Cole is convinced that this is the key distinction between Governor Wike operating in his position as governor of the entire Rivers people and the President-elect acting in his capacity as President-elect for all Nigerians.
He continued by saying that their differences stem from this.