Finally, Dino Melaye, the loud, rambunctious former Senator from Kogi
\nWest has fallen. He has been made to kiss the dust and has finally been
\nrusticated from the Senate which, at the peak of his career, when the
\nSenate was under the armpit of the equally-rusticated Bukola Saraki,
\nturned senatoring to one huge showmanship. Dino was so loud that he made
\nhis vanity and its celebration look like his greatest achievement. When
\nhe was not advertising his exotic cars, he was mounting a comedy show to
\nrub it on his opponents that he was relevant. But the stubborn spirits
\ngot angry with him and went to work on his case.<\/p>\n
In tune with the many strange odds in our national politics, Dino Melaye
\njust happened on the stage. He came from nowhere to find his way to the
\nHouse of Representatives. There, he posed as an anti-corruption fighter
\nwho captured the minds of many Nigerians that were sold to the pursuit
\nof social justice in the cobbled Nigerian political space. With the gift
\nof showmanship, Dino was able to capture the klieg lights as he made a
\nshow of his concern with the rampaging acts of corruption that were
\ngoing on when he was at the house. But then, his life was a huge
\ncontradiction to what he professed. His strange passion to fight
\ncorruption was tempered by the brazen display of wealth and his
\ninability to explain the source of his strange wealth cast a huge slur
\non his pretension to fight corruption.<\/p>\n
But Dino relished the klieg lights and was entrapped in its glow. He
\nstruggled so hard to keep himself on the national space, often through
\ncontroversial acts that extended to even messy relational issues.
\nKnowing how to rant to capture his audience on very many issues, Dino
\nwas a recurrent decimal on our national discourse; either for good or
\nill. He poked and taunted his political enemies and was often to call
\nthem to a fight, which many saw as an effort to hug the limelight. But
\nthen, this provoked the stubborn spirits more and they grew determined
\nto lift the rug off his political feet.<\/p>\n
As time went on, Dino fell out with his PDP hierarchs and belching so
\nmuch loud profession of populism, he found his way into the converging
\nanti-PDP sentiment that birthed the APC in 2014 and clinched the party\u2019s
\nsenatorial ticket in the 2015 election. As was the fad with that time,
\nDino was easily elected into the Senate; cruising on the wings of the
\nvictorious APC and the Muhammadu Buhari whirlwind that swept PDP to the
\ndungeons in 2015. With his friend and soulmate, Saraki, Dino was soon to
\nrevolt against his party in the choice of National Assembly leadership
\nand with the connivance of his erstwhile party, stole in a leadership of
\nthe National Assembly that worked on cross purpose with his party, the
\nAPC. Dino featured prominently in the many desperate acts of the Saraki
\nleadership of the senate to keep its stranglehold on the National
\nAssembly leadership. This often put him on warring paths with the APC.<\/p>\n
While at the senate and with his annoying petulance, Dino was to
\nencounter a scrutiny of his academic credentials in a move led by
\nSaharareporters. Though he survived this inquest, he was vicariously
\nbruised as the revelation of deep holes and gashes on his academic
\nclaims subdued and tamed him to a great extent.<\/p>\n
Dino Melaye was to clash with his local Kogi APC leadership and the
\nstate government who abhorred his sabotage role and were bent on
\nwithdrawing him from the Senate. An extensive recall process was
\ninitiated against him and he scratched through a last minute survival
\nthat really shook the foundation of his boisterous political life.<\/p>\n
As the 2019 general elections approached. Dino, Saraki and a cache of 14
\nother senators executed a plot against the APC where they planned and
\ndefected to the PDP with the hope of enacting the kind of revolutionary
\neffect the APC wrought in 2015 when a faction of PDP leaders and
\nofficials defected to the APC and contributed greatly to the ouster of
\nthe PDP. As Dino and his cohorts jumped ship into the PDP, they and the
\ngenerality of PDP rank and file celebrated that act as an bankable sign
\nthat they will rout President Buhari and APC from power in the on-coming
\n2019 election.<\/p>\n
In the election proper, Dino was the only senator among the 16 senators
\nthat survived a phenomenal routing that saw the remaining 15 senators,
\nincluding Saraki lose their seat and gain a humiliating retirement from
\nthe senate and from politics. It was obvious that by being the only one
\nthat survived this routing, Dino must have fathomed that he bore a
\ncharmed life that is unconquerable by any living mortal. Though his
\nparty lost badly in both the presidential and National Assembly
\nelections which somehow, subdued and humbled Dino in his public
\ncarriage, he felt invincible and believed that his political life was
\nabove human destruction.<\/p>\n
But the hunting spirits were not tired of Dino\u2019s case. So when the APC
\ncandidate whom he defeated in the 2019 senatorial election, Senator
\nSmart Adeyemi proceeded to the election tribunal to challenge his
\nvictory, he must have laughed it off as another wild goose chase. But
\nthat was where the spirits laid in wait for Dino. His election was
\nnullified at the tribunal on reasons of grand manipulation. He waved off
\nthe tribunal loss and boasted that he would emerge triumphant in the
\ndecisive appeal tribunal where he went to seek relief against the
\nadverse tribunal judgment. The appeal tribunal ruled and affirmed the
\nruling of the lower tribunal, while ordering for fresh election thus
\nmarking the end of Dino in the Nigerian Senate. With sparse courage left
\nin him after this devastating ruling, Dino boasted that Adeyemi is like
\nhis wife and that he had mastered the art of defeating Adeyemi in
\nelections.<\/p>\n
Before then, Dino had joined the contest for the PDP governorship ticket
\nin Kogi and just garnered a paltry 70 votes in the primary to come a
\ndistant fourth. He railed and ranted that he was rigged out of the
\ncontest and refused entreaties by his party men to work for the victory
\nof their candidate in the ensuing gubernatorial election.<\/p>\n
Come Saturday, November 16, the day the re-run election was fixed and
\nDino was seeing ghosts all over. Relishing his discontent and
\napprehension of imminent defeat, the spirits closed in and tightened the
\nnots. Falling on the same date a governorship election that was to
\ndetermine the fate of his bitter political rival, Governor Yahaya Bello,
\nDino knew there was rea trouble for him at the polls. The thought of
\ndefeat was enough to scare the living daylight out of Dino as his
\ncourage deserted him and he was turned to a scare-monger that saw ghosts
\nin every direction. He went to town with specious tales of plots to rig
\nthe election against him and his PDP. On election day, he became a full
\ncomedian, hawking stories of grand rigging plots against him. In one
\ninstance, he tweeted that APC deployed helicopters to bomb him and his
\nsupporters on election day but knowing him for who he is, no one paid
\nhim heed. When results started coming in and he was being trounced, he
\ndid everything to discredit the results. The final tally of the results
\nsaw him trailing Adeyemi by over 20,000 votes but because the cancelled
\nvotes exceeded that margin of victory, the Returning Officer ordered a
\nsupplementary election.<\/p>\n
Knowing that there was no way he could offset the deficit he was having
\nagainst Adeyemi, Dino went full circle in fangling diverse scenarios to
\nstop the make-up election. He produced many videos alleging electoral
\nmanipulation and cajoled INEC to stop the supplementary elections but
\nall ended up in smokes. Even as he threatened to boycott the election,
\nDino turned up and voted on election day and when results were
\nannounced, he heavily lost to Adeyemi thereby widening the deficit that
\ntrailed him going to the supplementary election. With the announcement
\nof the final results and Dino trashed, the ghosts that saw him survive
\nmany plots to shoo him off the senate finally got him thereby ending his
\nloud, controversial span in the senate. Some have opined that given his
\npenchant to revel on the national scale, that Dino should join the local
\nfilm industry, Nollywood but time will tell where he will continue his
\nparody. Certainly not in the senate where many have seen his ouster by
\nrecalcitrant stubborn spirits, as good riddance to bad rubbish.<\/p>\n
Peter Claver Oparah<\/p>\n