Oshiomhole kicks as participants disrupt national dialogue talks in Edo

The governor who was speaking after the Isoko ethnic group made their contribution said he objected to spending huge public funds on what he termed a wasteful venture, saying during the tenure of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, money was spent on a similar conference and at the end, nothing came out of it.“I will be […]

The governor who was speaking after the Isoko ethnic group made their contribution said he objected to spending huge public funds on what he termed a wasteful venture, saying during the tenure of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, money was spent on a similar conference and at the end, nothing came out of it.
“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”, he said.
A member of the presidential advisory committee, retired Col. Tony Nyiam, spearheaded the interruption of the governor’s speech as he attempted to shout him down. Thereafter, 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.
While Oshiomhole spoke, Nyiam started shouting on top of his voice that he should shut up and sit down. He was then joined in by others who disrupted the whole proceedings and many scampered for safety as chairs were thrown in different directions. The governor who earlier insisted on concluding his remarks however yielded when things began getting violent.  Moments later, a young man walked up to the stage where the committee members were seated and took the microphone and announced that he had just been attacked by some persons, saying that lives were no longer safe in the hall.
This prompted the committee chairman, Senator Femi Okunroumun, to announce at about 4.10 pm that lives of members of the committee were under threat in Edo, forcing the committee to end further hearing from interest groups. Different ethnic nationalities and civil society groups which earlier presented papers, appeared to be in agreement that ethnic nationalities should form the basis of selecting majority of participants to the national conference, even as they gave a time frame between three and six months for the conference.
Among issues canvassed were restructuring of the federation to ensure fiscal federalism, resource control and devolution of powers.
Earlier, chairman of the committee, Senator Femi Okunroumun, had told the participants that the conference was for the people and that there were ‘no go areas’. However, the governor had during a courtesy visit to him by members of the committee led by Senator Femi Okurounmu, said he had no faith in the whole process.
Oshiomhole said: “All I owe Nigeria now is to speak my mind. It could be error of my head but certainly not of my heart. As much as I wish you well, I just want to say that I have no faith in this process and I do not think it was necessary at all. I am unable to find any basis to give me some illusion that this exercise will not be different from the others. And I honestly think that in terms of the private sector, when a country keeps debating how we can live together that cannot be one of the basis on which the outside community will invest in Nigeria. They may well wait until we know how we want to live in Nigeria”.