Tag: Melaye

Senator Dino Melaye likes to celebrate his audacity. His recent press conference arranged to deny his alleged verbal assault on Senator Oluremi Tinubu and put the encounter between the two distinguished senators during their executive session on 12 July 2016 in perspectives provided just another opportunity to once again celebrate his audaciousness. “I have never been a coward; I will never be. I fight my battles alone and I stand by it and there is nothing I say everywhere that I cannot repeat everywhere”, he boasted.

But why repeat the obvious, if you believe yourself – some will ask? Nigerians, if Melaye wants to know, understand his reckless bravery finds expressions in acts such as abandoning the business of lawmaking to accompany Bukola Saraki’s wife to honour EFCC invitation, mobilizing 84 ‘like minds senators’ to intimidate the judge of the CCT before whom Saraki is facing charges for alleged false declaration of assets and raging and threatening the executive on the floor of the Senate over the arraignment of the senate leadership for alleged forgery. Of course, we also know his alleged unrestrained tirade against Senator Tinubu during the executive session of the Senate on July 12 was in pursuance of the same objective –celebration of audacity.

From Melaye’s account, we now know the executive session was designed to cut deals. He admitted that  in spite of police investigation which confirmed that there was indeed a forgery of the senate rules, a development that has led to the arraignment of the leadership of the senate along with others,  he was trying to pacify  ‘all those who have gone to court should go and withdraw their names from court and that if  at the end of the day those who refused to withdraw their names from court, we should penalise them by suspending them”. He anchored his argument on the fact that there was already a Senate resolution saying its papers were not forged. But he did not tell the public whether the resolution was passed before the alleged crime or after the police investigation and arraignment of suspected culprits. If it was passed after the event, he did not say whether it has a retroactive effect.

Similarly, from Melaye’s account, it doesn’t appear Senator Tinubu was initially opposed to the deal but only became irritated by Melaye’s threat to sanction those who do not support the planned cover up. She stood up not exactly to distance herself from the deal under discussion but to warn that while they were trying to find ‘solution’, Melaye had no right to intimidate any senator with suspension threat.  “I’m just wondering”, Tinubu was reported to have said, “whenever Senator Dino Melaye speaks in this chamber, he is always threatening people and behaving childishly. This thug must be tamed.” When Melaye reacted by saying she was stupid, she retorted by calling him a dog. And ‘when I stood up and I reacted…’ Melaye continuing the narrative, ‘she went on shouting ‘thug, dog, thug dog…” In the melee that followed, the deal as well as Melaye was undone.

Now no one is listening to Melaye’s ‘It is fallacious, malicious and a lie that I said I will impregnate Remi Tinubu. Biologically it is even impossible to impregnate her because she has arrived menopause…’  ‘How can you say you want to beat somebody and at the same time you want to impregnate the person…does it make any logical sense?’ – the embattled Melaye seeking understanding of the reporters asked. No one seems to believe him. Then as an afterthought he added: ‘I will continue to uphold the culture the tradition, the values of the Kogi West Senatorial district and I will not abuse it.’ The closest response to that sober undertaking was Kogi West Youth Leaders Forum’s denunciation of his verbal assault which they described as “embarrassing, irresponsible, uncultured and unguarded utterances which have become utterly unbearable to the good people of Kogi West who he unfortunately represents in the Senate.”

Osun women have joined the anti-Melaye crusade. All Progressives Congress (APC) women in Osun last week issued a statement to say “Senator Melaye’s attack and threat to beat up Senator Tinubu and impregnate her were uncouth, indecent, demeaning, humiliating, sexist and criminal.” They also say it is a violation of the provisions of the Violence against Persons Act of 2015. There was also a woman’s right advocacy group- Amazons for Change that described Melaye’s verbal assault as “the worst conduct in the history of the Nigerian Senate”. They did not forget to call the attention of the public to what they described as Melaye’s “recent uncouth remarks in reference to Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s wife.” There were protests from Ondo women and a group has come out to warn Melaye against stepping on any part of Yoruba land. There have been reactions by Nigerians from all parts of the world. They all agreed with Senator Tinubu that Senator Melaye must be caged.

There are two lessons to be drawn from this tragedy. Our new insight into how the 8th Senate is run has now confirmed our worst fears. The Senate whose leadership by their own accounts emerged in an inelegant way has been sustained through self-help using strategies popularised by thugs or Lagos area boys. When Saraki’s wife was invited by EFCC for questioning, the Senate quickly passed a resolution protesting the harassment of wives of their senators.  When Saraki was dragged before the Code Of conduct Tribunal for false declaration of assets, the Senate’s response was a vote of confidence on their leaders. They followed that up by trading the senate chambers for the CCT ostensibly in solidarity with Saraki when in fact the action was meant to intimidate the judge. And when that failed, petitions emerged to show the judge was ‘corrupt’. The Senate then usurped the duty of EFCC and summoned him for a questioning, fixed on a day he was scheduled to preside over Saraki’s case.

Senate’s response to the ongoing forgery case has not been different. A vote of confidence on those accused of alleged forgery, some theatrics on the floor of the Senate where brave Melaye argued that if the Senate rules were forged, it meant the confirmation of the AGF, the service chiefs and the passage of the budget stands invalidated. When that crooked logic did not impress anyone, they summoned the AGF to come and defend his actions. And when the July 12 executive session failed to seal a deal after a retroactive Senate resolution to cover an alleged crime, they threatened impeachment of the president.

In other words, the leadership of the 8th Senate acquired through self-help strategies of area boys or what legendary Fela described as ‘Igboju pass power’- (reckless bravery) is managed through bully and blackmail. It is perhaps only in Saraki’s Eighth Senate that those accused of criminal activities, rather than clear their names would turn around to threaten those who do not want to commit perjury with suspension.

The second take away on the lighter mood was how audacious Melaye was finally undone.  He forgot that man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man (Corinthians 11.9). He forgot that a woman is equipped with a complex analytical mind that enables her subdue any man no matter how audacious. All Senator Tinubu did to cut Melaye to size was launching from her bag of verbal arsenal an appropriate answer to Sigmund Fraud’s age long question of “what is on a man’s mind” at irrepressible Melaye and he was undone. Now am sure he knows no man ever wins a woman’s war.