Rivers APC guber candidate, Tonye Cole, deletes congratulatory message to Tinubu

Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers state, Tonye Cole, on Saturday deleted a Facebook post in which he congratulated president-elect, Bola Tinubu, on his victory at last week’s polls.

Mr Cole deleted the message after his supporters stormed the post’s comment section to express their displeasure for his comments, as several vowed to withdraw their support from his gubernatorial bid.
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He congratulated Mr Tinubu on his controversial win in the presidential election which has continued to attract public criticism from several electorates who believe that the election was not credible.

Mr Cole had earlier ignored the public outcry to describe the widely disputed electoral victory as the will of majority of Nigerians who appreciate Mr Tinubu’s “contributions to democracy.”

“Your conquest is an attestation that majority of Nigerians believe in the milestone you achieved in Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and your immense contributions to our democracy over the years,” the post read.

The gubernatorial hopeful also added that Mr Tinubu’s victory is a testament to the party’s triumphant standing ahead of next week’s gubernatorial election.

“This victory is very important to Rivers State APC because our state is among the states you won convincingly; this shows that our party is fully on ground in the state,” he added.

However, he bowed to the pressure and deleted the post.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mr Tinubu winner of the presidential election, despite calls from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) to cancel the presidential poll over INEC’s failure to upload results to its portal in real time.