Why I took on Oshiomhole, by Nyiam

Oshiomhole

Nyiam yesterday defended his attack on Oshiomhole, saying the governor made ‘’sarcastic remarks’’ against the proposed national dialogue.

Speaking on the telephone, with a correspondent, he also accused the governor of “talking down on people.”Nyiam said he felt Oshiomhole, after “lecturing” members of the dialogue advisory panel on his reasons for opposing the conference, during their visit to him in his office, came to the venue and started the same lecture.

His words: “Governors who have penchant for insulting the President or making sarcastic remarks against the sense of judgment of the President of Nigeria should be ready to tolerate response from Nigerian citizens to tell them no. The committee’s role is advisory, we need to consult with the people to advise us and we will then synthesise the people’s opinion and use that to advise the President because we believe that we need to work towards a people’s-driven constitution which we never had in our history.

‘’We thought we should start a bottom-up approach from the grassroots to the top. The attitude was that there should be no talking down on the people we are supposed to engage the people not to talk down on them. Based on this principle, the key feature of our consultation was to meet with the people but out of courtesy we pay courtesy calls on the governors or the king in the city.”

He added: ‘’ So when people started booing the governor, I went to the chairman to remind him about the rules of our committee. The chairman said we should give him a chance to continue. He carried on with his derogatory remarks and it was at that point I then said ‘no, not again’. When I said that, by this time, his aides tried to come at me, but when I suspected that one was at my back I stood up. I sat down throughout.

‘’Not long after, a group of thugs came towards the table. It was then that the SSS people advised that mylife was not safe and I was taken away for safety. The girector of the state SSS raises security around us. The Commissioner of Police came to see me and they brought security. The police drove us all through out of Edo State because of the fear of attack. So, contrary to what they said, that I mobilised thugs, it is not true, it is Edo people that protected me.”