Politics
Rivers 2019 Governorship Election: Revealed Tonye Cole’s Sierra Leone Background
The All Progressive Congress-APC Rivers State governorship aspirant and former Sahara Energy Group Chief Executive Officer, Tonye Dele Cole popular addressed as TDC by his followers and admirers may not reveal to any-one who wants to know why he has kept away from Rivers State and resided at Lagos and Brazil in his adults life, www.towncrier.ng investigative inquiry revealed that Tonye Dele Cole, the son of a seasoned journalist and diplomat has Sierra Leone as his country origin.
In the event of his father’s mother being born in Abonnema, Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State the Cole family took up abode at Lagos a more convenient place where several other Sierra Leone descendants have co-existed with other Nigerians.
In the first place, majority of the Sierra Leone citizens came into Port Harcourt as Crown Colony Colonial Workers and most of them having engaged into marital affairs with the natives, remained at Port Harcourt after Nigeria gained independence from the British on October 1st, 1960. Today, remnants of Sierra Leone citizens regularly have a common association known as “The Sierra Leone Descendant Union” with their President known as J.N. AITKINS and their secretariat located at no. 35 Victoria Street Port Harcourt with telephone contact 08037089311.
www.towncrier.ng will also reveal to you some of the prominent members of “The Sierra Leone Union” Rivers State Chapter who include a popular high life musician Late Prince David Bull of Professional Seagull Dance Band. His father Engineer Joshua Charles Bull of blessed memory was an employee of colonial administration into the Public Work Department-PWD having come from Sierra Leone in West Africa. He got married to late Mrs. Clementina Kalaada Ellis Furo Green of Bonny Island in Nigeria where he finally settled.
Other Sierra Leone migrants settled among the natives like the popular musician Geraldo Pino of blessed memory who lived at a popular hotel-near to Rumuokoro axis of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Port Harcourt in Rivers State until his death as he was buried at Port Harcourt cemetery in Rivers State few years back.
Inside Port Harcourt town nearer to Nembe Water Front are a large community of Sierra Leone citizens who served in the colonial administration and having abode in colonial Quarters for workers of that era who engaged into the construction of Wharf for shipping anchorage and the Railway for the shipment of Coal, from Enugu and Tin, Mineral from Jos and other produce for exports.
Other Sierra Leone citizens like one popular photo-journalist called Barret remained a columnist with most Nigerian Newspapers including Nigeria Vanguard. And Ambassador Patrick Dele Cole the father of Tonye Dele Cole made a tremendous mark in Nigerian print journalism business as he made Lagos a permanent abode till date. His son, Tonye Dele Cole a renowned Architect obtained from a University in Brazil and got settled there for some time before relocating to Nigeria.
The Governorship aspirant Tonye Dele Cole has no visible presence in his Rivers State claimed root even his humanitarian Foundation known as “Jeremiah Foundation” and his Sahara Energy Group never considered Rivers State as a home front of its co-founder Tonye Dele Cole until now when in 2014, he bought some of properties of Rivers State as a businessman while Rt. Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi was the sitting executive Governor of Rivers State whose second term tenure was about to terminate on May 29th, 2015.
Right now, Tonye Dele Cole is a chosen aspirant for All Progressive Congress-APC Rivers State Governorship Primaries election coming up on 25th of September, 2018. And should he emerge as the winner of the APC governorship primary election, he will be the standard bearer of the party in the 2019 Governorship election and it will make history for a Sierra Leone Descendant to be voted into elective office of the Governor of Rivers State one of the most richest State in Nigeria with vast crude oil and Gas deposits and having rich cultural heritage of the 14 ethnic nationalities since 51-years of its creation from Eastern Nigeria.
Rt. Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi
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But with fierce challenge from his grand-maternal home front of Kalabari, such governorship aspirants as Barrister Dumo Lulu-Briggs from Abonnema town in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State where Tonye Dele Cole claims affinity with his Rivers State people.
