By Gideon Njoku
In one of the most hotly contested Senatorial elections held in Nigeria, flamboyant Senator, Dino Melaye, PDP, has been swept out of the Senate.
He was, roundly, defeated by Senator Smart Adeyemi, APC, who he had replaced in 2015, to represent Kogi West in the Senate.
Announcing the result which has robbed the Senate of one of its most vocal voices on Saturday, Returning Officer, Professor Olajide Lawal, said Adeyemi polled a total number of 88, 373 votes to defeat Melaye in a supplementary election. Melaye scored 62, 133 votes.
The outcome was expected
Melaye had stormed the INEC headquarters, Abuja, a couple of days to the election, protesting INEC’s preparation for the election. He called it a fraud, and asked the Commission not to hold the Supplementary election until it addressed his complaints and fears.
The Commission ignored him
Celebrating Maleye’s defeat, Adams Oshiomhole, the National Chairman of the APC, was not humble in victory. “As it stands today, the broom has swept away the entire 16 Senators, Dino being the last, who tried to destabilise our democracy for their personal interest, jettisoning the interest of the electorate”, he gushed.
The fierce contest between Melaye and Adeyemi is an irony of sorts. It is one straight out of a story book.
Melaye, initially of the PDP, had, dumped the party, in the run-up to the 2015 election, for the APC, along with a number of his colleagues, including, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki. At the Senatorial election, he had defeated the incumbent, Smart Adeyemi who was then of the PDP. Then, he was an ally of Governor Yahaya Bello. His towering figure, standing behind Bello in 2015, as the governor took his oath of office, would not be forgotten easily.
But in a twist of fate, Melaye fell out with Bello, and the APC. Adeyemi cashed in on that, dumped the PDP and decamped to the APC. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Melaye, who along with Saraki, had a rough deal in the APC, dumped the party and went back to the PDP. Saraki and 14 others were to follow later in the run-up to the 2019 election.
Ironically, all of them lost their seats. The exception was Melaye.
But his victory was short-lived
Adeyemi had approached the Senatorial Election Tribunal to challenge his defeat. The Tribunal saw merit in his case, and ordered a re-run. But, unsatisfied, Melaye went on an appeal. The Appeal Court upheld the verdict of the lower court.
Exuding confidence, Melaye had described Adeyemi as his political wife, boasting that he would defeat him again as he had always done.
A re-run was set for November 16.
And, even though the result was declared inconclusive, Adeyemi was clearly in the lead.
In the Supplementary election on Saturday, Adeyemi finally swept Melaye out of the Senate.
For Adeyemi, a former President of the NUJ, it is a sweet return to the Senate. And for Melaye, this defeat will, surely, be a sobering experience. The seed to it was sown in the run-up to the 2015 General election when he and the others dumped the PDP for the APC, thus contributing to PDP’s defeat. Now, everyone of them, it seems, is a loser.
