{"id":176230,"date":"2025-08-26T18:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T17:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy"},"modified":"2025-08-26T19:36:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T18:36:31","slug":"rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy","title":{"rendered":"Rivers State Sets Dangerous Precedent for Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>The 2023 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has criticized the planned conduct of local government elections in the state scheduled for August 30.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Arise TV\u2019s Morning Show on Tuesday, Cole said holding elections during a \u201cstate of emergency\u201d under a Sole Administrator reflects everything wrong with Nigeria\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Cole argued that if democratic structures in the state have been suspended for any reason, they should remain suspended until proper conditions are restored, insisting that conducting elections under such circumstances is unacceptable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI personally feel that having that election in the time of a state of emergency, under a Sole Administrator, I think it just says everything wrong about democracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you have suspended all the democratic institutions, then let\u2019s know we have suspended them for whatever reason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou cannot be having elections under that cover. So, I don\u2019t think that is right, even the perception of it is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cole further alleged that the planned local government elections appear to be a political plot to capture the local government structures.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that Rivers State is setting a very dangerous precedent for democracy in Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question then is that, Sim did an election, which he seemed to rush. The idea was that, let\u2019s capture the local government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of that was reversed, and then we\u2019re doing exactly the same thing now. So, the question is, what are we trying to capture and for whom is this being captured?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, it just sends the wrong signal and that\u2019s why I\u2019m against it. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right. If we want to do democracy, let\u2019s do democracy properly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut where there\u2019s this sense of impunity where you can do anything any how and nobody can talk. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I think Rivers State is setting a very dangerous precedence for democracy\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The 2023 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has criticized the planned conduct of local government elections in the state scheduled for August 30. Speaking on Arise TV\u2019s Morning Show on Tuesday, Cole said holding elections during a \u201cstate of emergency\u201d under a Sole Administrator [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":176229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[254,421,14720,7283],"class_list":["post-176230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-nigeria","tag-rivers","tag-rivers-lg-poll","tag-tonye-cole"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rivers State Sets Dangerous Precedent for Democracy - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The 2023 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has criticized the p ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rivers State Sets Dangerous Precedent for Democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 2023 governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, has criticized the p ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-26T17:26:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-26T18:36:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/08\/sm_1756220940.100283.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Rivers State Sets Dangerous Precedent for Democracy\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-26T17:26:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-26T18:36:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\"},\"wordCount\":346,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/08\/sm_1756220940.100283.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\",\"Rivers\",\"Rivers LG poll\",\"Tonye Cole\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-state-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy\",\"name\":\"Rivers State Sets Dangerous Precedent for Democracy - 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