Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole who led the seven man committee to conduct the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary in Bayelsa State yesterday accused former governor Timipreye Sylva of invading the venue with suspected thugs to disrupt the exercise in what he described as total disregard to the party’s guideline for conducting primary.

Oshiomhole, who addressed newsmen at Government House in Benin, said members of his committee were held hostage for several hours by political thugs loyal to ex-Governor Sylva who threatened that they must conduct the primaries in spite of the fact that some delegates were arrested with cloned cards.

He explained that all the aspirants in the primaries agreed that proper accreditations of all delegates must be done in accordance with the party’s guiding rules but was shocked that only former Governor Sylva declined adding that it was glaring that he was not ready for the primary.

It was however gathered that when thugs invaded the Samson Siasia Stadium venue of the election, Oshiomhole was whisked away by the military and later flew in a chopper to Benin as thugs loyal to Sylva threaten to unleash mayhem on the members of the committee.

Oshiomhole said: “It is very important to note that the National Secretariat has a guideline for conducting primaries which was used in Kogi State and everybody was happy with it. The key issue is that delegates have to be identified with national IDs or international passport as the case may be.