Mr Tonye Cole, the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers, has advised his party members to remain focused and not be distracted by unprofessional interpretation to the lawsuit trailing his candidacy, saying he is still in the race.

Cole gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Port Harcourt.

He said the major problem concerning the various court rulings challenging his candidacy as a gubernatorial candidate of the Rivers APC, was based on wide spread misinterpretation of court rulings by uninformed individuals.

The candidate added that his party had concluded preparations ahead of the political campaigns by engaging in detailed grassroots sensitisation across the 23 local government areas of the state.

“There is definitely no confusion as regards my candidacy, but one of the things that we see is that everybody has suddenly become a lawyer.

“Some individuals have made themselves expert judges, they’ve turned themselves experts in everything, and they interpret court proceedings to their advantage and publish same falsehood.

“But the truth is that, there is a simple process, the Supreme Court sent a part of a matter back to the Appeal Court and the Appeal Court is sitting on it.

“This should not cause any form of confusion as it is an acceptable practice in law,’’ Cole said.

The governorship candidate expressed surprise over trending reports on the nullification of his political mandate.

He urged the public to debunk such stories, saying that no such judgment was given by any competent court.

“There is no judgment that has nullified my candidacy, for now the Supreme Court only asked the Appeal Court to hear the matter and its surprising that at this point some persons have already pronounced judgment by themselves,’’ he said.

Cole said that rather than allow distractions in his political camp, he had effectively engaged in robust grassroots sensitisation programmes to further prepare eligible voters ahead of the campaigns and elections.

“We are ready for the elections, we’ve been going from ward-to-ward talking to our people, we are ready to engage in very peaceful, but robust campaigns in few weeks from now.

“We are ready to follow the rules of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) until we deliver victory to our great party.