4th May, 2012
The Oshiomhole Campaign organisation (OCO) on Friday said it would on Saturday commence campaign for the re-election of Gov. Adams Oshiomhole in spite of the killing of the governor’s aide, Olaitan Oyerinde.
Mr Olaitan Oyerinde, the governor’s private secretary was on Friday morning killed by unidentified persons in his Ogbor residence in Benin.
But the Director General of the OCO, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, at a news conference at the Aguobasimwin campaign office in Benin said that Oyerinde’s killing “gives us reasonable cause for concern. Against the backdrop of the fact that it is happening on the heels of an orchestrated fatal auto crash involving the governor only a week ago.We are further informed that our political adversaries plan to orchestrate road accidents and kidnapping of prominent ACN leaders.’’
Ize-Iyamu also alleged that the organisation was also aware that “they have also planned to plant bombs in strategic locations, especially campaign grounds just to occasion mayhem. “When you juxtapose these events, we are not in doubt that all this is all about politics of do-or-die and an atavistic attempt to capture power by crude and foul means.We call on the commissioner of police to take prompt and decisive action with a view to smashing this dastardly political killer squad”.
He added that “politically motivated assassination as a vehicle for attaining political power has never been part of Edo state political culture.
“And this is the time for law enforcement agents all well meaning people of Edo to rise with one voice and tell the political desperadoes to put their murderous and assassination genie back in the bottle,’’ he said.
Ize-Iyamu said members of the organisation would stage a peaceful protest to the office of the Edo police commissioner to register their condemnation of the incidents of the past few weeks.
He said that the commencement of the campaign would still hold as planned at the museum ground Kingsquare on Saturday.
“We hereby call on our teeming supporters, loyalist and the good affectionate people of Edo to turn our massively at the Benin Museum as the comrade governor kick starts his campaign geared toward taking Edo to the next level.
He, however, urged members to be peaceful and resist the urge to become violent in the face of provocation.
Reported by News Agency of Nigeria