By Daniel Musa
April 8, 2023
It is no longer news that the Kogi State PDP 2023 Governorship primary election is fast approaching, what is news is that while all the aspirants are busy going about the business of preparations for the primary election, Dino Melaye is busy fooling himself on the streets of Abuja, lobbying any Tom, Dick and Harry in the PDP national secretariat that is willing to receive money from him to try helping him undermine the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election.
However, it is not news that Dino Melaye is fond of being on the news mostly for the wrong reasons. This time around, he has gone too far. Mutilating delegate lists and falsifying delegate lists and substituting delegates names; are among the new sets of low that Dino Melaye has attained in his dwindling political career that at first was never at any rise except for infamy and illegality and rascality at its peak.
Dino Melaye that cannot on his own win a senatorial primary election is the person sweating in illegality in his bid to want to win a State’s primary election? Perhaps, Dino Melaye’s “Abuja delegates” will come to Kogi State on April 16th to force themselves on the party in the State and perhaps they will use force to replace the delegates elected from the field within the State, to vote in the primary election, else, one wonders what the end-game of theirs can be.
One can only imagine what Dino Melaye intends to do with his Abuja delegates. For the records, Dino Melaye’s Abuja delegates must steer clear of the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election voting booth on that April 16 or better still, Dino Melaye can sit back in Abuja and along with his Abuja delegates, do his own primary election by himself. Any “Abuja delegate” who forces his or her way to the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election voting booth in Lokoja or anywhere the party in Kogi State will want to have it done, will be equally forcefully resisted. Dino Melaye’s Abuja delegates must therefore take heed if they honestly know what is good for themselves.
Dino Melaye has succeeded in heating up the polity within the PDP in Kogi State but his pawns of Abuja delegates should think twice on this illegal and risky journey Dino Melaye is taking them now. Whatever happens to them on the primary election day if they try to vote, will be on them as they are not on the authentic delegate lists that emerged from the ad-hoc delegates elections conducted across the 21 Local Governments of the State. They know and they know themselves.
The irony of all these Dino Melaye’s shenanigans is that it was this same Dino Melaye that was screaming on live TV during the collation of the 2023 Presidential election, claiming that INEC is partial and that INEC and the APC have connived to rig out the PDP for APC. So, what then shall we call what Dino Melaye is currently doing with his antics of illegality against the forthcoming Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election? Or does Dino Melaye not know of the maxim in Law that says “he who must come to equity must come with clean hands”?
Can it be that as of February 27 when Dino Melaye was at International Conference Centre screaming at INEC national chairman over rigging claims, he (Dino Melaye) in fact has plans to rig the forthcoming Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election? If that be the case, then it means that indeed it is who is caught stealing that is tagged a thief. For Dino Melaye and his co-travellers in illegality, it is a matter of who has the powers to steal at a time, and if he has the powers to steal, he will do worse than the much-dreaded APC that we all condemn of being fond of stealing elections. If Dino Melaye could accuse the INEC national chairman of stealing the 2023 Presidential election for APC, then what shall we call Dino Melaye’s attempt to outrightly steal the Kogi State Governorship primary election for himself, if not hypocrisy and show of lack of integrity?
In his own dreams; cheap blackmail and insulting people will give him the party ticket? That is not going to happen! For record purpose, Dino Melaye is one of the reasons the PDP lost the presidential election. This was as he was constantly dramatizing in the Presidential campaign, insulting people on stage in virtually all the States where Atiku goes to campaign.
Dino Melaye, all in the name of campaigning for the party’s Presidential flag-bearer, was constantly calling out senior members of party and by extension, deceiving the leadership of the party into believing they can win the elections without carrying along other majority of the members of the party across the country. The National Secretariat and his cohorts who are no less merchants of illegality in the party, should know that all the illegalities they are planning with Dino Melaye against the PDP especially the Kogi State PDP, are well known as we have our sources among us. Dino Melaye’s accomplices in illegality must be very certain that nothing useful will come out of their illegal plans against the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election except that the illegal plan of theirs will only help them destroy the party unless and if the right things is done, and what can that right thing be? They should quit their illegal plans against the Kogi State PDP and let the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election be fair from start to finish, starting with allowing the duly signed delegates lists submitted from across the various wards by the Local Government Chairmen of the party from across the 21 Local Government Areas of Kogi State be the authentic delegates lists of the party to be used for the conduct of the Governorship primary election.
Even if the entire PDP national leadership feels Dino Melaye’s jester-job for Atiku during the 2023 Presidential campaigns was worth rewarding, they should find something else to reward him with, not the Kogi State PDP Governorship ticket! The Kogi State PDP Governorship ticket is too important to be handed to a jester in no less the person of Dino Melaye. Even if we allow Dino Melaye be installed as the PDP flag-bearer, the PDP will not be voted for at the November election as Kogites don’t vote for jesters and they can’t permit their fate as citizens be in the hands of a jester even for a second. These are some of the key issues. Among the aspirants, there are well-respected sons of Kogi State with verifiable sources of income, individuals who have made sacrifices for the PDP, individuals who have stood loyal to the PDP through good times and through bad times, individuals who have served the party faithfully, individuals whose impact can be said to have been practically felt both in their localities and across the State. Such worthy sons of Kogi State are regarded more, compared to Dino Melaye, by Kogi State voters. Hence, except to help the PDP in Kogi State lose the November Governorship election, there is definitely no other reason why the PDP national leadership may be hell-bent on forcing Dino Melaye on the PDP in Kogi State.
We may not know how much in bed, Dino Melaye is with his co-travellers in self-deception and illegality at the PDP national secretariat, but one thing we know for sure in Kogi State is that across the Central, East and especially West senatorial districts of Kogi State, nobody is going to vote for PDP if Dino Melaye becomes the PDP Governorship candidate. Even within the party, none among the authentic delegates elected from the three-man adhoc delegates, will vote for Dino Melaye, especially, now that he has been caught in broad-day light in his attempt to undermine the internal democracy of the PDP in Kogi State.
We will be waiting for Dino Melaye and his “Abuja delegates”, to resist them, after-all, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”.
We are also aware that Dino Melaye, in another show of shame is currently hiring some misguided elements to do road-show for him so that he can send videos and pictures from such organized show of shame to his friends in Abuja who are deceiving him, as sign that he is on ground in Kogi State.
If there is any advice we have for those friends of his, the advice will be that they do their own investigation independently and they will see that Dino Melaye is not an acceptable aspirant for even a Senatorial primary election any day any time except if backdoor channels are used to assist him get through per time.
For the records, the various years that Dino Melaye got tickets of the PDP, he got them through being assisted through him being shielded from an open constest. In an open contest, Dino Melaye will lose. We saw that happen during the 2022 Kogi West PDP senatorial primary election.
For those Dino Melaye may have told that he is on ground, the truth of the matter is that he is not on any ground within Kogi State, except if the ground is Abuja. Nobody in Kogi State intends to vote Dino Melaye. For us in Kogi State, every politics is local and we will not have anybody who is not from Kogi State dictate to us as to who we should give our Governorship ticket to.
Even in Kogi West, nobody is with him even within the PDP. The fact of the matter is that Dino Melaye does not have the support of anyone within Kogi State, hence he is using undemocratic forces from outside of the State to try forcing his way through. The big question is; a person who feels popular and acceptable, does he or she need to be jumping around Abuja, trying to manipulate an election process? Other aspirants are in Kogi State engaging the elected ad-hoc delegates, only Dino Melaye is in Abuja “shopping for delegates in Wadata plaza”. Whoever in “Wadata plaza” that sells fake delegates lists to Dino Melaye should also tell him to do the fake delegates a favour by warning them not to come close to the Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election voting booth when the primary election voting process commences on April 16, else they would not like what they will experience. Before Dino Melaye finishes the PDP in Kogi State with his Abuja delegates and his manipulation plans, we that are on ground in the State, that know who the authentic delegates are, will do all within our might to put up a resistance to Dino Melaye’s illegalities against the PDP on that day, and we will not mind if Dino Melaye’s Abuja delegates happen to be collateral damage in the process of our resisting their illegality against the party on the primary election day.
We have warned and we are still warning; Dino Melaye’s Abuja delegates should not come close to the Kogi State Governorship primary election voting booth to do anything at all on the April 16th Kogi State PDP Governorship primary election day else we will resist them regardless of the cost which we cannot immediately estimate as of the time of this admonition.
God bless Kogi State PDP,
God bless PDP,
God bless Kogi State,
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Daniel Musa is a member of Patriotic Youths Progressive Alliance. He writes from Lokoja, Kogi State capital.