Tonye Cole's response to claims Wike rigged Rivers State governorship elections

The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State, Tonye Cole has spoken about reports of rigging in the governorship elections in the state by Governor Nyesom Wike.

Cole who lost the elections to Sim Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party said the elections were flawed and marred with violence.

The entrepreneur finished second after scoring 95,274 votes to Fubara's 302,614 votes.

Beatrice Itubo of the Labour Party scored 22,224 votes to come third.

Speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Tuesday, March 28, he said: "The first aspect of it is that the elections were flawed, and the second aspect is irrespective of the elections being flawed, people still came out to cast their vote."

"Now when it was obvious that it was moving in the direction that was favorable to us, we started seeing a lot of mutilation of our results, and a lot of cancellation of results, the first thing we did was to say that the electoral process needed to be canceled and this was why collation was still going on."

Recall that Cole had raised alarm over alleged intimidation of voters in parts of the State.

He made the claim after casting his ballot in Ward 12, Unit 2 in his hometown of Abonnema, Akuku-Toru local government area of Rivers State.

He said if not checkmated by security agencies, the intimidation of voters may lead to voter apathy and affect the credibility of the process.