For his public outburst on Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state during the Presidential Advisory Committee’s sitting in Benin-City recently, a civil rights organization, African Network for Environmental and Economic Justice )ANEEJ) Thursday called on Col Tony Nyiam to apologise to the Governor.
The group said the Governor and the people of the South-South extraction deserve the apology because Nyima bungled the discussions in Benin City, saying the embarrassment “speaks volumes of the motives for the national dialogue.”
Rev David Ugolor, the Executive Director of ANEEJ, in a statement issued in Abuja accused Col. Nyiam of “working in concert with some political thugs” and brought the proceedings to an abrupt end as a result of their inability to respect or condone alternative view expressed by Oshiomhole.
The statement reads further, “If historical antecedents of Col. Tony Nyiam is anything to go by, we recall his active participation in a coup d’état led by Gideon Gwarzo Okar which sought to topple the Ibrahim Babangida dictatorship in 1990 and, later pardoned by the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime.
“It is, therefore, not surprising that such a character could jump up from his seat as an organiser of the consultation to shout down a serving state governor who was only expressing his personal opinion.
“We condemn Col. Tony Nyiam’s actions and we call on him to tender a public apology to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Nigerians of the South-South extraction. We therefore call on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack Col. Tony Nyiam (rtd) from the committee and prosecute him for violating the right of a citizen, a serving state governor for that matter, for expressing himself in an honest and frank manner.
“The choice of personalities like Nyiam as member of the presidential Advisory committee truly speaks volumes of what is to come out of the proposed national dialogue. His presence in the committee is ironical, this is because Nyiam’s antecedents betrays a national dialogue”.
Ugolor, noted further that democracy guarantees freedom of speech, insisting no individual or group should violate the rights of other citizens from expressing themselves in the preparation of a national dialogue that, in itself, seeks to bring people together to express themselves.
“We now wonder what the planned conference seeks to achieve if people are expected to say only what the committee wants to hear. We are left with the impression that the planned national dialogue will not be different from others previously organised national jamborees where public funds are brazenly wasted on unprofitable ventures,” the group stated.
