In a piece in this column on November 16, I expressed the pity I felt for the electorate in Kogi State as they trooped out to elect the governor that would rule the state for another four years with the tenure of Alhaji Yahaya Bello due to expire in January next year. My sympathy, as I stated in the piece titled Tough Day for Voters in Kogi, stemmed from the widely held belief that with Governor Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Engr Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the front runners in the election, voters in the state were condemned to make a choice between the rock and the hard place.
In the said piece, I stated that while Governor Bello had done far less than he should to merit a reelection, opting for the candidate of the PDP, a party that previously ruled the state for 16 odd years only to leave it worse than it met it, would amount to rejecting the pot to embrace the kettle. As it turned out, the people opted to stick with the pot, even though many would argue that the votes cast by the electorate had little or no influence on the figures announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Instead of ballot papers, AK-47 became the driving force that determined the outcome of the poll, such that many residents of the state were still smarting from the loss of loved ones at the time this piece was being composed. Numbered among the victims is PDP chieftain and women leader in the state, Mrs Acheju Abuh, who was reportedly burnt alive by thugs in the orgy of celebration that followed the announcement of the winner.
Incidentally, the Kogi West senatorial election rerun between the PDP candidate, Senator Dino Melaye, and his perennial rival and APC counterpart, Senator Smart Adeyemi, which took place the same day as the governorship election, was no less acrimonious. Like the governorship race, it was an exercise in which the people of Kogi West had to choose between leaping into the fire and diving into the sea, based on the antecedents of the two gladiators.
The fact will not be lost on many watchers of political events that before the by-election that sealed his fate last week, Senator Melaye had been a member of the National Assembly since the violent electoral exercise that took him to the House of Representatives in 2011. At the lower legislative chamber, he led some bellicose lawmakers who tagged themselves the Integrity Group to literally turn the hallowed chamber into a boxing ring. To the chagrin of his constituents in Kogi West, among whom the writer is numbered, Melaye was spotted on camera time and again engaging some other members of the House in fisticuffs and even having his dress torn on occasions.
The smart politician that he is, Melaye defected from PDP to APC in the build-up to the 2015 elections, picked the new party’s senatorial ticket and rode the crest of the momentum enjoyed by the party and its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, to secure election into the Senate. But any hope that he would mend his riotous ways soon vanished as he simply continued from where he stopped in the House of Reps. In a high moment of belligerence at the upper chamber, the cantankerous senator attacked Senator Oluremi Tinubu, a hapless female colleague, threatening to beat her up and even impregnate her!
At his aggressive best, he took on the Nigeria Police, allegedly leading a band of inebriated thugs to shoot at a cop on duty at a checkpoint in Kogi State. And when the police tried to ferry him from Abuja to Lokoja where he was to be arraigned for attempted murder, gunrunning and illegal possession of arms, he jumped out of a moving police van, injuring himself in the process. So huge was the embarrassment Melaye became for his constituents in Kogi West that he barely survived an attempt that was made to recall him from the upper legislative chamber.
Needless to say that many Nigerians, particularly from Melaye’s constituency in Kogi West, would heave a sigh of relief that the he is finally relieved of his senatorial seat, not just because he turned the hallowed chambers into a boxing ring but also because he turned the serious business of lawmaking into a circus show. But based on antecedents, his replacement by Senator Adeyemi is no guarantee that things will look up for the ill-starred constituency.
Blessed with decorum, Adeyemi is not a senator that would engage other lawmakers in a brawl. He would not engage a Senator Oluremi Tinubu in an altercation much less threaten her with pregnancy. He will most likely not engage the police in a shootout or do a James Bond by jumping out of their moving vehicle. In short, the global embarrassment that has been the lot of the inhabitants of Kogi West with Melaye will most likely become history with Adeyemi in the saddle. But it is almost as certain as daybreak that the difference will end there.
Performance wise, the people will be living in self delusion if they expect Adeyemi to make more impact than Melaye in terms of the constituency’s development. This personal assessment is based on what transpired in the four years the former spent earlier as senator, when his constituency office was unknown and none of his constituents knew the direction to his residence because he made Ilorin, the Kwara State capital his base.
Of course, I will be the happiest if he proves me wrong in the end. Adeyemi served as an absentee senator in his first term. In this rare opportunity of a second chance, will he be available? (The Nation)
