During the week, the Senator representing Kogi West senatorial district, Dino Melaye, was prevented from continuing a trip scheduled for Morocco at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. Recalling the incident, Melaye revealed that he was pulled aside by the Nigerian Immigration and told he was being held upon police request. In the process, according to him, his international passport was “snatched” from him. He also stated that he took it back from them when it dawned on him that his temporary detention was illegal and could be part of a larger plan to abduct him and deliver him to his traducers.
Melaye went ahead to show that he was not put on the list of no flight persons. The list is usually contained on the records of Interpol. Interpol puts people declared wanted by a local police so that the individual does not escape to other countries to evade investigation and possible trial. In the case of the senator, he was able to show that his name as at the time of his arrest in Abuja Airport, had not been put out by Interpol as a flight risk. Therefore, it seems the actions of both the Immigration and Police were premeditated and probably sinister. Otherwise, how can the police claim that a very vociferous legislator was evading arrest when his movement is public knowledge.
Subsequently the police took a step further. This time, showing how prejudiced they are. The police stormed Melaye’s Abuja home and barricaded the place, thus preventing movement in and out. As a law abiding citizen, the senator was later to issue a statement to the effect that he will report himself to the police authorities, this he did. But that was when things took a dangerous twist. Reports show that instead of taking him to court as earlier promised, the police changed and decided to take him to Kogi state. Of course, the senator rightly rejected the subterfuge. In a scuffle that ensured according to media reports, the senator was rescued by sympathisers.
Melaye claimed afterwards that the police out to assassinate him that was why he was being purportedly taken to Kogi without his consent. The police on the other hand claimed that the senator wanted to escape justice by jumping through the window of a moving police van. They claimed that the senator had planned with his thugs to obstruct his arraignment reason his thugs came with two vans so that he can escape after getting off police protection. Now this is where the whole drama gets more curious. How can a bulky Melaye escape a moving police vehicle through the window? Not that he tried to escape, he actually escaped! Some things do not add up.
The Nigerian police should know that by now their handling of the Melaye matter has cast them in bad light. Not only that, it appears the police is determined to become partisan and a private army of a certain governor. There’s no doubt that the issue about this senator has to do with local politics as it affects Kogi. But the police, instead of being an impartial arbiter has taken a front row seat and decided criminalising the legislator. Worst of all was seeing Melaye in hand cuffs lying in a stretcher being taken to hospital or out of it. This is barbaric and must be condemned by all.
The police has become an interested party in this matter and as such can no longer guarantee transparent investigation. Granted that Melaye comes with some kind of tantrums which we call on him to put in the cooler so that the issues not is blurred, however putting him in hand cuffs is the height of humiliation. We expect the police to tread carefully in matters of persons with political exposure. The way and manner the Melaye saga has been handled leaves a bad taste in the mouth. There are a thousand and one ways to handle a recalcitrant subject, more so in a politically charged environment like Nigeria. And in this instance ,knowing that this matter began as a result of partisan squabble.
This was the same way the police commissioner in the state who had been removed from the state was reinstated ostensibly after the state governor’s intervention. The police commissioner and the governor are alleged to be in cahoots to undo Melaye. Having succumbed to pressure as alleged, it won’t be out of place to think that it is the same pressure that brought about this frenzied pursuit of Melaye by the police in Abuja.
By this, the Inspector General has shown himself to be incapable of holding unbiased opinion. He is a man that can be pressured to indict people, as such not a candidate to hold the office. We repeat our call to the president to sack this I.G. and reorganise the police. We equally call on the legislature to come up with bills that can address police structural and management issues.
