The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just concluded governorship election in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of sending hoodlums to attack him and his team to prevent them from accessing the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Port Harcourt on Monday.
Cole, who explained that he and some leaders of his party were at the INEC office to obtain documents used for the election to file a petition to challenge the declaration of the PDP candidate, Siminialayi Fubara, as the winner of the election, claimed that they were attacked by thugs allegedly sent by the PDP.
Speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt, the APC candidate said he was assaulted by thugs, who threw items at him including water, food and stones until he got injured.
He said, “We are supposed to be in a democracy and one of the tenets of democracy is that after an election, INEC being supposedly an impartial umpire will have documents and these documents are available to everybody who participated in the election. These are critical documents which when we take to an electoral tribunal, we will build our case upon that to the electoral tribunal.
“On Friday, we were at INEC, and we asked for these documents, but they have not given us a single one. We said we were coming back today (Monday) and because we said we are coming back today, the PDP organised thugs everywhere to prevent us from getting to the INEC office.
“I wasn’t deterred and so I went with my party chairman, the women leader, the youth leader, and senior officials of the APC to the INEC office.
“They had barricaded the road from GRA Junction, everywhere boys, girls. They began to assault me, I came out and a woman began to drag my shirt, they pulled me from the back, first, they were throwing water then they began to throw food and the next minute they started throwing stones.
“The next thing after that, we started hearing gunshots, it took my security people to forcefully evict me. They destroyed our vehicles, they injured me. They slapped me, they punched me, they pulled my shirt, they dragged me, and then threw stones at me until I was injured in the back.”
He said he and his team were left with no option but to leave the INEC office and run to the APC office for safety.
Recall that gunshots were heard on Monday when members of the APC and PDP clashed in Port Harcourt over the inspection of electoral materials.
Hundreds of supporters of the PDP had stormed the INEC office demanding that the electoral umpire release CTC of the documents of the election for joint inspection by political parties.
