–Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) –By Austen AKHAGBEME:
The crow, reveling and gloating by the ruling party over the recently announced loss of the Kogi-west senatorial supplementary election by the enigmatic Senator Dino Melaye , showed how petty, self-serving and vindictive Nigeria politics can be.
Not only did they boast of trashing ” the last of the 19 senators” led by Sen Saraki, who ingloriously left for the opposition ; they equally boasted of the demagoguery of their party chieftain and invincibility of the party’s electoral arsenal. Sen Dino has suddenly become the fly that needs to be smashed by a sledgehammer, vilified and thrown into the trash can of history.
No! I would rather think his ordeal is metaphorical of the desperate but bizarre desire by a privileged politician and his godfathers to uproot an opposition without regard to the feelings of the people he adequately represents, as long as he’s considered to have cross the red line. This is truly petty, mundane and revealing of the base mind set of the average Nigerian politician towards wining an election.
There’s no gainsaying the fact that Senator Dino Melaye, himself, could have wax a musical album out of this electoral outcome had the table turned to his favour, it is rather pertinent to know that an almighty ruling party will have the scarce luxury of time and ego to engage in such petulant perversities.
The supplementary election, no doubt, was a test of resolve between a serial loser and a vociferous winner. This time around, the ‘usual winner’ could not withstand the fire power of the Abuja lubricated machinery but bowed to the many salvos shut at stopping him. Dino must take solace in the fact that he fought a good fight. He has contributed his quota to the development of opposition politics and politicking in Nigeria, no doubt. He represented the lone voice of reason and the cacophony of dissent in the upper chambers as at when necessary, in his day.
His time was a challenge to the effectiveness of the generality of the Nigerian youth; indefatigable, verbose, valiant and vocally vociferous.
He sometimes, if not most of the time, played to the gallery. He became a musician of the thespian order, a gloat master himself. He was good at dramatizing his victories and his defeats. He could sing in an academic gown to the consternation of those who said he didn’t go to school. He could jump off moving vehicles with an awed precision of a Jackie Chan and climb trees with the speed of a reptile all to the amazement of those who held him in high esteem. That is the quintessential Dino Melaye we shall all come to miss.
In Nigeria, those who had so much but did so little often insist on those who had so little but did so much what to do. This is why yours sincerely will not and never listen to the ranting of Dino’s political party who obviously could not come “to his aid” when he needed them the most. He should outrightly reject their counsel of going to challenge the election in court. Our courts are full of jesters who dispense only judgements but ignore justice.
Dino should consider going back to his anti- corruption advocacy as he did the other time. Perhaps, he should begin to auction his arrays of exotic automobiles to raise fund for this while preparing himself for the next opportunity. Life goes on, so must Dino.
*Austen AKHAGBEME is a columnist with Blank NEWS Online
