On this latest Dino Melaye versus SaharaReporters affair,
apart from engaging in a little jokey exchange with some friends over the
matter just a while ago, I have kept my mouth firmly shut. This is because
since Mr Melaye and his Senate friends in the form of the Senate President,
Bukola Saraki and Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah tried late last year to introduce a
harebrained law to shut down free speech on social media, I’ve always
considered him a sandwich short of a picnic. In other words, ignoring him
seemed the most sensible way to deal with his menace.
Of course, I’ve observed his capacity for grand public idiocy
and senseless self-publicity since his days in the House of Representatives,
but considering he’s offered nothing of value by way of public policy, my
policy of ignoring him seemed even more sensible. So, when this latest episode
started, I had naturally applied my default position. But, at this point,
silence is no longer an option. Mr Melaye is taking the biscuit and he’s turned
the institutions of the Nigerian Senate and the great Ahmadu Bello University
into his dip to enjoy his illicit confectionery.
I think the real lesson we have learnt from this whole affair is
that our Senators and Vice Chancellors have too much time on their hands. In
other words, we are not getting value for money in both cases. I mean, how do
you explain a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having the time, in a
recession, to be running around proclaiming he has multiple degrees (when he
obviously does not know the difference between degrees, diplomas and
certificates), singing silly songs, dancing silly dances and wearing funny
academic gowns to the plenary session of the Senate while marching from Abuja
to New York threatening to sue SaharaReporters for daring to
say he did not graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University?
The Senate actually found the time to sit to look at this
allegation and invite the Vice Chancellor of a top national university who
drove for over three hours to come see them for about twenty minutes only to
say a former student who is now a Senator actually graduated from the school
with a Third Class degree. I mean, do they need the Vice Chancellor, Professor
Ibrahim Garba to confirm what should be on record, a record that the subject of
the investigation should have, a record the Senate could have simply called
for? Why does Dino Melaye not have a hard copy of the degree supposedly issued
to him by the university indicating he made a Third Class in Geography in 2000?
And if the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions was keen
on doing a fair and thorough job, why did they not invite Omoyele Sowore and SaharaReporters?
They used the excuse of Senator Ali Ndume as the accuser and he was duly there
to play the Pantomime Villain finally converted by Dino Melaye’s barrage of
certificates, even though the only certificate actually needed was not
presented. More crucially, his so-called petition was not even in writing as
required!
The more depressing aspect of the whole thing is to listen to
people who should know better taking sides and debating agitatedly about who is
right or who is wrong. Honestly, this is all embarrassing. Dino Melaye’s
elaborate drama is uncalled for. It diminishes the upper house of our national
legislature and the way the Senators have handled it raises questions about the
calibre of persons we have there. At the very least, it calls to question the
quality of people in leadership there.
The matter was not a Senate matter at any level. If Dino Melaye
felt libelled by the claim, the only forum open to him is the court of law.
Going to the Senate to be justified by his friends is an abuse of parliamentary
privilege. The same for the appearance of the Vice Chancellor. When all is said
and done, there still is no evidence that Dino Melaye has a degree indicating
that he graduated from Ahmadu Bello University. The mere words of the present
Vice Chancellor sixteen years after he supposedly did this degree do not
constitute proof. The only proof is a certified original copy of a degree
issued to him at the time he was supposed to have graduated. We have seen all
sorts of documentation in public space, but we are yet to see that. If Dino
Melaye is thinking of going to court, he is better advised to be armed with a
true, certified copy of the degree certificate issued on the date of graduation
by the university and signed by the Vice Chancellor at the time, otherwise he
will be on a hiding to nothing.
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