A statement by Tonye Cole, the APC Governorship candidate in the 2023 gubernatorial election in Rivers State referring to Tony Okocha, the sacked Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, as former Governor Nyesom Wike’s ally has triggered controversy between the two political bigwigs .
Cole had reportedly accused Tony Okocha, the Rivers APC chairman of being a member of Nyesom Wike Political family, and so not qualified to speak for the APC in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister had controversially remained in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) despite his alleged anti party activities.
The PDP top hierarchy had recently moved against Wike when they sent a letter of invitation to him to come and defend himself against allegations of anti party activities.
Reacting to Cole’s accusation in a press release by his Special Assistant on Media, Vincent Gbosi, Okocha said he was more than qualified to speak on behalf of APC Rivers State as the chairman of the party, having been recognized as such by the National Working Committee of the Party.
Hear Okocha: “I have the audacity and temerity to speak on behalf of the APC in Rivers State as the chairman /leader of the party.
I have every power to speak for the APC in the state, especially now that the National Working Committee (NWC) has further recognized me as the leader/chairman of the APC in Rivers state.”
Okocha alleged that Tonye Cole is not a factor in the politics of Rivers State, having not played together with them, and had never been anywhere in the picture of the politics of Rivers state.
“He was only drafted in by his business partner who was the Governor of Rivers State then,” Okocha said.
Okocha who is also the Rivers State Representative in the Management Board of the NDDC, also disclosed that he conveyed the decision to choose Emeka Beke as the secretary of the APC in Rivers State in 2014.
“I challenge anybody to tell me where a meeting was held to select who was going to be the chairman and secretary of the party.
“The meeting was between my boss then, the Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, His Excellency, as the Governor, and myself,” Okocha disclosed.
Tonye Cole, he restated, was nowhere to be seen within the political space in Rivers State.
It baffles Okocha that people should insinuate that because he greets Wike, the minister of the FCT, he had become a member his political family.
“So, that I see E. N. Wike, Honourable Minister, and I greet him, that makes me a member of his political family,” Okocha said, stressing that he was in the APC while Wike was the PDP.
Okocha said he doesn’t play politics of bitterness and animosity whereby a member of an opposing political party would look at each other as enemies instead of as opponents, stressing that Wike serves in a government that its leader is a member of his party.
“I have told you before that the Renewal Hope Family in Rivers State is nonpartisan. The sea of heads you saw the other time are all not of the APC. Some of them are unaligned, not members of any political party but people who believe in the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, in Rivers state,” Okocha stated, adding that anybody who believes that because Wike is of the PDP and he Okocha is of the APC, the two of them should not greet each other, must be politically naive.
