Dynamite explosion meant to stop APC rally in Rivers – Tonye Cole

The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has said that the dynamite explosion during the party’s campaign rally on Thursday in Port Harcourt was a move to stop the rally from being held.

Cole stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

Some supporters of the party sustained varying degrees of injury as an improvised device suspected to be dynamite exploded at the popular Igboukwu field, the venue of the APC rally in Port Harcourt.

Governor Nyesom Wike has since blamed the APC in the state for the explosion.

• New NDDC Board Won’t Disappoint Niger Deltans – Minister
• Sowore: Tinubu slept at presidential candidates meeting, didn’t say a word

Cole said, “We were at a rally but right from 4am after we put up the podium and all of that, we started getting resistance from the mayor of Port Harcourt and a couple of people who wanted to stop that rally. They asked us to go elsewhere, but we refused. All this is a move to see if they could stop us from conducting our rally.

“Eventually we secured the place, but during introduction there was an explosion, then gunfire, before people began to run towards the exit. We had to stop them. We calmed them and asked them to sit down. I was well aware that the last thing they wanted is stampede. That would have caused greater fatality. The injuries were not life-threatening.”