FOR quite a while now, the Nigeria Police and the senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye, have provided a spectacle for the Nigerian polity that could have been adjudged quixotic if it was not also boringly distractive. Apparently, there is no love lost between the duo and quite frankly, it would not have bothered many a Nigerian if the state apparatus had not been brought into ridicule and disrepute in the bid to settle personal scores.
Somehow, both parties think that they need to feed their respective craving for public attention at all times. Truth be told, Senator Melaye, IGP Ibrahim Idris and the police have played the cat and mouse game at the expense of the Nigerian public’s intelligence and patience. Recently, the police laid a siege to the Abuja residence of the senator. According to the force, the distinguished senator and some others still at large shot a policeman who is presently in a critical state of health and it invited the senator for questioning, but he had not been inclined to honour the invitation. The police then in its peculiar wisdom chose to lay a siege to the senator’s home in Abuja for eight days in the bid to smoke him out.
At some point, the policemen on the siege assignment reportedly numbered 50! That seemed to give a lie to the claim that the country is under-policed. If the force could afford to deploy such a number in a senator’s home just to affect an arrest, it clearly must have had enough officers and men to secure the country. But then, it is a fact that it does not. In the case of Senator Melaye, the question of self-esteem loomed large. Pray, why would a serving lawmaker, and a senator to boot, be dodging arrest? Did he mean to say that he could pick and choose when to honour police invitation? And where would that place him in the eyes of the law?
It is apposite to recall the similar experience of his colleague representing Kaduna Central, Senator Shehu Sani, who honoured police invitation without any ado. Apparently, such an act of civil obedience by a lawmaker is alien to the attention-seeking, garrulous style of Senator Melaye, for whom drama seems to be a compulsive addiction. On the other hand, just how did a force which lost a disturbing number of its men recently to bandits in Zamfara State have enough men to lay a needless siege to the home of a serving senator, an assignment which could have been performed by two policemen at the most? Quite honestly, it is a tough assignment tracking the trajectory of the police logic in the bid to arrest Senator Melaye. Was the crude method of disconnecting water and electricity supply to Senator Melaye’s home really necessary?
But for a knack for publicity, and a negative one at that, there was no reason for the police to smoke out a senator in that manner. IGP Idris, of whom the senator has been very critical, apparently wanted to convey the impression that he had state power and could deploy it as he pleased. He failed to show decorum, restraint and good judgment in public office and cast a further dent on the country’s already sullied image. The fact that even after he had surrendered, the senator had to be dragged on the floor like mere chattel showed that Idris and his men had undeclared motives. They are clearly unfit for the positions that the state thrust upon them.
Both the senator and the police should really be ashamed of themselves for ridiculing their respective arms of government. To say the least, the police were completely unprofessional and Melaye did not behave like a distinguished lawmaker. Nigerians must be cringing in embarrassment at their conduct. There surely should be better ways of conducting arrests. Now that Senator Melaye has made himself available to the police, are both sides relieved? The Nigerian state must take more seriously and approach with more caution, the task of placing people in high offices.
and then