How Cole, Amaechi, others are working against Tinubu – RIVERS PCC/ICC
● Allege plan to frustrate Tinubu;
● Highlight Cole’s refusal to campaign for Bola Tinubu;
● Say Tinubu’s face not on billboards of Rivers APC candidates;
● Urge G5 Govs to join rescue mission
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, APC Presidential flagbearer in action. Will he survive the unfolding intrigues ahead of him?The APC’s Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, and the Independent Campaign Council, ICC, have accused the leadership of the party in Rivers State as well as the State Coordinator, Tonye Cole of working against the presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Members of both campaign councils at a press conference in Port Harcourt said there is solid evidence to prove that the governorship candidate and the entire leadership are anti -Tinubu.
“This Press conference has become imminent”, the PCC and the ICC stressed in the speech delivered by Chief Tony Okocha “to forestall and assuage a repeat of the abysmal and shameful and reprehensible outing of the APC Rivers during the 2015 presidential election.”
Okocha recalled the situation in 2019, “wherein APC in some Local Government Areas of Rivers State, secured zero votes and could not secure up to 15% commutatively in the overall result/votes cast in Rivers State.”
Given what he described as the<span;> honor bestowed on he and his colleagues in the PCC and the ICC by the Party, Okocha declared, “we are overly resolved in effectuating the course and rewriting the hitherto sordid histories of the Party in the State (Rivers).
Tony Okocha accuses Tonye Cole, others, of working against Tinubu’s interest“Unfortunately, this effervescent zest is threatened heavily by the flagrant inactivity, pusillanimity, lasser-faire and largely, disinterest of the leadership of the APC in Rivers State and the PCC leadership under Governorship candidate, Pastor Arc. Tonye Cole.”
He accused Tonye Cole and the leadership of refusing to call meetings to discuss the way forward and claimed that in course of his ongoing campaign the State flagbearer has refused to campaign for Tinubu.”
“Our Governorship Candidate in all his engagements has not found it convenient to mention communicate/canvass support for his Party’s Presidential Candidate howbeit in passing.
“By way of joining issues with us here, we challenge the Governorship Candidate, who is the coordinator of the PCC, to show banner, poster or billboards, where he shares with the Presidential Candidate.
“We challenge the Candidate before you the Press, to show which media outfit, he has sponsored jingles or publications or adverts howsoever, for the Presidential Candidate of the Party.
“Rather, our observations and keen followership of the campaigns hosted by the APC Rivers and Governorship Candidate of the Party, has shown that the duo, are careful not to mention our Presidential Candidate, so as not to be tar-brushed by certain infinitesimal anti Tinubu/Shettima elements, who they believe, would vote for them in the election of March 11, 2023.”
Similarly, the PCC and the ICC challenged “the National Assembly Candidates of the APC Rivers, whose elections are same 25th February, 2023, with that of the President, to show posters, billboards, jingles, etc where they share with the Presidential Candidate of our Party.
“One would have thought after the National Convention that threw up a Presidential Candidate of the Party, those who were hitherto aversed to the Candidate’s aspiration as it then was, should have struggled to come out of what H.E, Aisha Buhari referred to as “Trauma of defeat Syndrome”.
Turning attention to some of the needless steps which taken against the presidential candidate during the convention era by a section of the party, Okocha emphasized expressed confidence that he would garner more votes than the party would.
“Whereas some of our members who wore our now Presidential Candidate, adult pampers and put him on imaginary stretchers on social media before the convention all to denigrate him, seem to have granted into other mushroom political clubs, we do not care a hoot.
“What we care about is the crass ineptitude of the party, APC, and the PCC coordinator in Rivers State towards our Presidential Candidate. However, we have said and continue to agree with one of our living political sages that “Tinubu will win more votes than the APC in Rivers”.
While urging the members of the PCC in Rivers State to up their game in favour of the APC presidential candidates or disqualify themselves from participating in the affairs of the body, Okocha appealed to the G5 Governors for help.
Some G5 Governors, including Governor pose for press cameras after addressing the press.“We use the opportunity to call on the G5 Governors (otherwise called the Integrity group) and other well- meaning Nigerians irrespective of Religion, Tribe and Creed to immediately swing support to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.:
He said such support for Tinubu would enable him “to cruise into the Presidential Villa as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We trust in his capacity to navigate our country, Nigeria, into our Eldorado.”
They also appealed to Tinubu not to restrict his campaign on February 15th to the venue of the event.
They urged him to take the entire day to campaign in parts of the State, saying that such a move would clear the part for his resounding victory in Rivers State.
As they put it, “The Presidential Candidate and the APC National, should, knowing the peculiarities and handicap of the APC Rivers, consider a full day for vigorous and rigorous campaign in Rivers order than the few hours allotted for the 15th of February, 2023.”