Tonye Patrick Cole (born 11 January 1967) is a Nigerian billionaire businessman, he is the co-founder and former Group Executive Director of Sahara Group[1] an energy conglomerate with operations spanning the entire energy chain in Nigeria and neighbouring West African countries to East Africa and beyond.

In addition to founding and running one of Nigeria's largest energy conglomerates, he also spearheaded and developed work carried out for the Sahara Foundation globally.

He served as a board member for Atlas Mara, Bloomberg TV Africa, Enactus Nigeria, Nigerian Chamber of Shipping[6] and Digital Jewels.

He is also an alumnus of University of Lagos where he bagged a bachelor's degree in Architecture and Engineering, then a Portuguese Certificate from Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil.

Tonye returned to Nigeria in 1993 and was quickly employed as the Director of Operations with the Nigerian office of Empressa Sul Americana de Montagens S.A.(EMSA) a Brazilian Civil Engineering Company from 1993 – 1996, which is allegedly the 7th largest engineering firm in Brazil that was awarded a World Bank – financed water project valued at about S5.8m for the Lagos Water Corporation.

[13] Author of “My God Thinks” (2016) Columnist to Thisday Style “Watchers of Times”[14] 2017 Oil & Gas Council Lifetime Achievement and Executive of The Year Award.

On 26 May 2022, Tonye Cole emerged as the flag bearer of the All Progressive's Congress (APC) for the 2023 gubernatorial elections after winning 77% of the delegate votes at the primaries.