That Drowning Dino Melaye’s Outburst Against Wike

Spewing from the cesspit of imaginary invincibility and bubbling with the arrogance of ignorance and like a nattering nitwit, in his usual juvenile fulminations, verbal diarrhea and audacious mendacity, the silver-tongued Dino Melaye who has been hovering around the skylines of political failures threw a java with such intensity as to make a gravy silence impossible. He was casting aspersions in a most vile and vituperative language and in such depraved light to a man who has been adjudged as a metaphor for promises made and kept, a performance personified, a manifesto copied, a social contract executed and in the legal profession, a life bencher.

Amongst his counterparts “Mr. Project” and further embellished as “Mr. Quality Project”. In the Northern political hemisphere “Sarki Yarki” a sobriquet for political warlord. The man at the center of Dino’s tantrums is Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state.
Dino granted an interview with the ambassadors of the fourth realm estate in his bid to play to the gallery but ended up reaffirming the invigorating words of Dr. Burns that “it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubts”. In that verbal show of shame, he admitted that Governor Wike supported him in hard currency and otherwise in 2019 in his fruitless political journey to captain the ship of Lugard House because Governor Wike saw capacity and competence in him, but today he has withdrawn his support to show Wike’s unstable character. Wrong Dino! Even the Bible said that Satan was perfect in all things until iniquity was found in him – Ezekiel 28:15. Yes! Dino failed to tell the world that Governor Wike later discovered that he was a native cymbal loud in noise but empty in content which translated him to be a very bad political investment.

Who in his right senses will reinvest in an unprofitable venture? He listed out Governor Wike’s failed political investments in Sandi Olu of Cross River, Albert in Akwa Ibom but mischievously and surreptitiously omitted Dino Melaye of Kogi state. What an incomplete trinity! What a despicable irony of intellectual hypocrisy. Little wonder with his nine acclaimed degrees, a former member of the House of Representatives, a two-time senator and a former aid to the president of the federal republic of Nigeria, the good people of Kogi state saw the word “meretricious” in Dino, meaning: seemingly attractive but without value, and they did not hesitate to throw his vaulting ambition to the trash bin in 2019. Instead of Dino to go back to the drawing board, have a sober reflection and reinvent himself and reintegrate himself to the society, he is busy with a matchet clearing shrubs and bushes for his political Golgotha. That was where Governor Wike was drawing his allusions from when he posited that it is not about presenting a candidate but a candidate that can win election.

It is on record that Dino Melaye is reputed for his hollow mindedness in dishing out noxious vituperations, venomous invectives and narrow parochial attack on elders and champions in giant strides and track records in Nigerian political firmament to foist his voice on unwilling audience. He did that to former President Goodluck Jonathan, to the (president elect) Bola Ahmed Tinubu and now to Governor Wike. Many Nigerians are wondering the efficacious potency of Peter Orubebe’s serum on Dino by his toutish, disgusting display of dishonor at the Abuja collation center in his failed attempt to disrupt the 2023 general election process. Today, Goodluck Jonathan is much celebrated as an ambassador of peace. Political events have shown that a Tinubu in the wheelbarrow is more competent than Dino’s preferred presidential candidate. Governor Wike’s preferred successor has emerged as the Governor-elect of Rivers state. Ayu has been shown the way out. Tambuwal has summersaulted from the highest rung of respect. Sanwo Olu made it in Lagos state. The unsuccessful G-5 Governors have realized that they were the architect of their own fate. They lit the candle and allowed it to burn with the unfortunate end. In political investment like other business investments, you win some and loose some.

Again, Dino Melaye threatened to open his can of worms and maggots on Governor Wike and by extension would make a skit, sing and release album on him. He forgot he was addressing a character and personality that is not too docile to dare. Governor Wike is not perturbed because he has gained freedom from fear tailored by the likes of Dino because Wike is ever ready to face him in any style of the macabre dance that may arise from such conspiracy of cheap blackmail. Worse still, in Dino’s unscrupulous attempt to throw dust on intellectuality, he ended up loading a full cartridge riffle and started shooting himself on the leg by accusing Governor Wike of stealing Rivers state money. Is the intellectually mobile fine boy Dino telling the world that he was actually cladded to look boisterous and attractive to gain acceptability and credibility from Kogi state people with Rivers state stolen money? Is Dino guilty of receiving stolen money? It then follows that if events are properly evaluated, the psychotic disorderliness, mental fatigue and problem upstairs was a direct result obtained from Dino’s personal medical physician.

The self-obfuscating Dino prided himself of being more qualified to be a Governor than Governor Wike. He further asserted that “the territory which Governor Wike is trying to practice is his own primary constituency”. One wonders the logic in such utterance. Has Dino Melaye ever tasted Executive power? Governor Wike is brandished with an unquestionable and robust political pedigree and personality spanning from a two-term Local Government Chairman, Chief of Staff to former Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Minister for state Education, Supervisory Minister of State and by May 29th 2023 he would’ve concluded his two-term tenure as Governor of Rivers state. If the linguistic summersault is anything to go by, who is laboring to practice in the other’s primary constituency? A sheer case of “if you want to talk, don’t drink. And if you drink, don’t talk”.

As a party chieftain in PDP, Governor Wike has been as consistent and constant as the Nothern star, yet political prostitutes like Dino Melaye had the temerity to use such foul language as zero-integrity character on Governor Wike. As someone grounded in Yoruba language, Dino Melaye chose to identify himself with a pariah status and a tag identification of treacherous people (gbegboron) when he said “my primary business is other people’s businesses”. This invariably includes knowing the type of clothes people wear, knowing the time the speaker of the House of Representatives arrives, knowing who was smiling, frowning, when a bill was mentioned in the Senate, who called him and how many times. This is the height of pettiness. See him at his lowest ebb, shame!
Let us burst Dino Melaye’s bubble as to whether Governor Wike is preparing to leave the Brick House come May 29th 2023. Governor Wike is the only Governor in Rivers state who has chosen to leave the government house two years before the expiration of his tenure and has been receiving all manner of political candidates cutting across political divides in his own residence. And he is not intellectually impotent as not to know his last day in office, he also reiterated these facts in his address at the dinner party held in his honor for receiving the Award for Infrastructural delivery by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Cynics may cheer and congratulate Dino for his pyrrhic victory at the just concluded PDP primaries in Kogi state but one is tempted to add that there are some victories that are worse than defeat. Dino by his earlier vituperation have succeeded in turning the incumbent Governor against himself, the president elect who he has been derogating in a most uncharitable manner during PDP campaign rallies and now to the political juggernauts in PDP. All political amoury is now let loose against Dino Melaye. If one is given the option to choose between laughing first and to laugh last, one would rather opt to laugh last.

By: Nkem Oputa