•Female students, others flay Kogi senator over attack on Senator Tinubua
LAGOS State All Progressives Congress (APC) Woman Leader Mrs. Kemi Nelson has denied receiving N75 million from Senator Oluremi Tinubu to organise a rally against Senator Dino Melaye for reportedly assaulting Mrs. Tinubu at the Senate chamber.
Mrs. Nelson spoke while reacting to a report by a civil rights movement, Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights that Senator Tinubu released N75 million to her through one of her sisters identified as Funlola to organise a protest against Melaye.
She said the report was a figment of the imagination of the committee.
The National President of CDWR, Prof. Taibat Majekodunmi, had made the allegation against the APC chieftain in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja.
But Mrs. Nelson said in a statement she personally signed that she didn’t need to collect money from Senator Tinubu or her husband, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to organise such a rally.
She added that they were her mentors, who she was ready to support without any pecuniary gain.
The politician said she would participate in a rally that would be staged by a women group today in Abuja to protest the alleged assault on Senator Tinubu by Melaye.
“We are moving to Abuja in full force to be part of this protest against Melaye for harassing a woman of substance like Senator Tinubu, whose family paid a huge price for our democracy.
“Our democracy is still nascent and we must do everything within our power to protect it.
“We should not allow people like Melaye to rubbish what took years and cost us several lives to achieve. What Melaye did was not just against Senator Tinubu, but against all women and against our democracy. We will not behave like Nero, who sleeps, while Rome burns.
“All right thinking members of the society must rise against this oppression and an open insult against women by a man that has done little or nothing for our democracy. We cannot pretend that nothing is happening, when such a sacrilege is being committed in our country,” the statement said.
An umbrella body of Nigerian female students, the National Female Students Association of Nigeria (NFSAN) and All Progressives Congress (APC) Women Caucus in Ekiti State have condemned Senator Dino Melaye for attacking the Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs.
In a statement issued in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, the National President of the NFSAN, Idongesit Micah, criticised Melaye for “assaulting and threatening Senator Tinubu.
The group condemned Melaye’s opposition to the emancipation of womanhood.
It said: “This same Melaye stood up during the debate on a Bill prohibiting sexual harassment of female students by lecturers in tertiary institutions and suggested that female students should be cautioned not to sexually harass lecturers as not all lecturers have the anointing to resist sexual temptation.
“The students’ community saw this statement as unbecoming from someone at such high level. Melaye failed to understand the number of female students that have been victimised and dropped out of school as a result of sexual harassment by lecturers when he gave this myopic suggestion.
“Melaye is happy that the present Senate has only seven female members out of 109 members and the way and manner he is going about with his threats, women will be afraid of contesting elective positions for fear of being bullied or beaten up by the likes of Senator Dino Melaye.”
Ekiti APC Women Leader, Mrs. Dupe Bakare described Melaye’s conduct as reprehensible and lacking in decorum associated with the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly.
Speaking on the issue in Ado-Ekiti yesterday, Mrs. Bakare criticised the Kogi senator over what she described as a show of shame.
“Melaye’s motor park act had given the senator away as a man lacking respect for family value,” she said.
Mrs. Bakare described Melaye as “unrepentant terror” to filial integrity in the world where women offered support for a strong family as a foundation for the health of the larger society.
“Senator Melaye has proven to be a man not cultured to be in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. “
A group, Asiwaju Change Movement (ACM), yesterday urged Melaye to tender public apology or face the wrath of the law over what it described as “unruly behavior” he displayed at the National Assembly,” the group said in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Mrs. Simisola Jegede in Akure, the Ondo State capital.
