Tonye Cole Warns Against Rivers LG Polls, Cites Insecurity
Former Rivers State governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, has criticised the conduct of local government elections in Rivers State amid rising insecurity, warning that holding polls under unsettled conditions undermines democracy and deepens public distrust in governance.
Cole, who was the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer in the 2023 elections, said during an interview on ARISE NEWS on Tuesday that the credibility of Nigeria’s democracy is at stake when electoral activities take place without a stable security environment or strong democratic institutions to back them.
“I personally feel that having that election in a time of a state of emergency just says everything wrong about democracy.
“If you have suspended democratic institutions, you cannot be conducting elections under such conditions. Even the perception of it is wrong,” he declared.
The APC chieftain argued that conducting elections under such circumstances risks legitimising a flawed process and reinforces public cynicism. According to him, democratic processes should reflect stability and fairness, not desperation.
Cole also accused political leaders of misplacing priorities when it comes to deploying security forces. He cited examples where heavy military and police presence is mobilised for elections but neglected in communities under attack from terrorists and bandits.
“How can you have a task force working for a small election in Zamfara with trucks of military, police, NSCDC and all manner of detachments, yet those same resources are not deployed to stop people being kidnapped? When it comes to critical matters, the same urgency is missing,” he queried.
Moving beyond Rivers’ politics, Cole linked these failures to a broader national problem in what he described as Nigeria’s lack of a data-driven, accountable security framework.
He argued that for years, governments have relied on rhetoric and assumptions rather than measurable outcomes, leaving citizens doubtful about real progress.
“One of the things that we must always do is have baselines. What are the baseline numbers, and where are we going from there? Amnesty International captures numbers, but we don’t. And I suspect that one of the biggest problems we have in Nigeria is that accountability backed by scientific evidence does not exist,” Cole lamented.
He said Nigerians are frequently told that security has improved, but without credible data, such claims mean little to citizens who continue to feel unsafe.
“We say security has improved, but do people feel the improvement? Can people point to the data and say fewer people are being killed in Benue today than five years ago? Those are the issues we must address,” he added.
Cole stressed that independent data collection should be treated as a matter of national priority, calling for budgetary allocations to support transparent reporting.
“Who is going to pay for the data? Nigeria has to pay for the data. It must be a line item in the budget. Without it, no security policy can succeed,” he said.
The APC stalwart further highlighted the importance of regional and international cooperation through bodies like ECOWAS, but emphasised that collaboration must be judged by tangible outcomes, not diplomatic rhetoric.
“What matters is: what’s your baseline? What are you measuring, and what results are you bringing?” he asked.
Sending a message to the Nigerian government, he said, “It is not enough to say security is improving. There must be evidence that people are actually safer. People must believe that their lives matter, and that’s the crux of the issue.”
Tonye Cole Warns Against Rivers LG Polls, Cites Insecurity is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
