Gov. Oshiomhole attacked at National Dialogue Committee convening In Benin City

The meeting of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National dialogue with stakeholders in the South-South ended in confusion, following an outburst from participants against a remark made by Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Pius Nsogho reports that Governor Oshiomhole was whisked away from the venue by his security details when the situation became tense.

EDO STATE GOV'T PRESS STATEMENT:
Thugs believed to have been hired by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday disrupted the proceedings of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue/Conference in Benin City today when they stopped Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State and others from making contributions to the ongoing talks.
A member of the Presidential Advisory Committee, Col Tony Nyiam (rtd) was the arrowhead of the disruption as he shouted down the Governor while making his contribution.
The thugs believed to have been imported from neighbouring states heckled the Governor as soon as they realized that his contributions would be different from the perceived opinion.
The Governor who took the stage to make his contribution shortly after the Isoko Ethnic group had made their contribution said he objected to spending huge public funds on a wasteful venture saying, during the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo, money was spent on similar conference and at the end, nothing came out of that conference.
“I will be surprised if anything changes. Sincerely, I have no business to deceive or mislead anyone. I believe that the outcome of this conference will not be different from that of other conferences we have had in the past.”
But as soon as Governor Oshiomhole made this statement, committee member, Col Nyiam jumped on his feet and would perhaps have lunged at the Governor were he close to him. He was restrained by other members who were taken aback by his action.
Even while the Governor was still making his contribution, Nyiam started screaming at the top of his voice for the Governor to shut up and sit down. He was then joined in by the PDP thugs who disrupted the whole proceedings and many scampered for safety as a result of the unruliness of the committee member and thugs.
The Governor who insisted on concluding his remarks however yielded the floor when the thugs were getting violent.
However, the Governor had, at a courtesy visit to him in his office by members of the Committee led by Senator Femi Okurounmu, said he had no faith in the whole process.