TheCable

Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi, says Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, is inconsequential in the politics of the state.

On Wednesday, a block of four classrooms Melaye donated to Government Girls Secondary School, Sarki Noma, Lokoja, were burnt down by suspected hoodlums.

Commenting on the incident in an interview with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Bello said Melaye is an “attention seeker” who may attack himself to get public sympathy.

Bello said neither he nor his supporters played a role in the attack, adding that there is a possibility Melaye staged the incident.

“The project that was embarked on by him that was burnt down is highly condemnable. I condemn it in its entirety,” Bello said.

“Remember the person in question is an attention seeker, remember he has orchestrated self-attacks severally in the state and I won’t be surprised in order to draw public sympathy if he organised that for himself.

“This is a project he started; nobody stopped you from starting it. You continued it and you completed it, nobody stopped you. You are about commissioning it, why would anybody go and burn it down? Why would any right thinking person go there and burn it down?

“That is not our character, that is not my own style of politicking. If anything, any development is for the people. The money did not come from his pocket, it is public fund meant for the people. So, if he tries to do that, and turn around to seek for public sympathy and orchestrated that on himself again, it is most unfortunate. That is the only way I can attribute it.

“In Kogi state remember, that we inherited a volatile state where a lot of insecurity, violence used to be an order of the day but upon assumption of office, Kogi state is the safest today.”

ALLIES TURNED FOES

Melaye and Bello have been at loggerheads for a while now.

When the going was good, Dino served as the chairman of the transition committee for the handing over of power to Bello.

Dino also played the role of master of ceremony during Bello’s inauguration on January 27, 2016.

They, however, fell apart months after Bello was sworn into office over alleged disagreements in political appointments.

Asked what the governor was doing to salvage the relationship between him and Melaye, Bello said there is no love lost between them.

“First of all, I am a governor and I represent the entire state- Kogi central, east and west. Dino Melaye is a senator, he never contested for governor, so, he can’t be a rival to be. No basis for rivalry at all,” he said.

“I am doing my best for the people of Kogi state. The very first time a sitting governor will not play tribalism or sentiment and I am carrying everybody along. He is representing a small portion of the state and we are not of the same political orientation.

“So, I don’t have issues with him, he has issues with his people and his constituency. You would not hear me making any comment about him except now that you are asking because he is very very inconsequential as far as the politics of Kogi state is concerned.

“The issue of recall, It was between him and his constituency, I had no hand in it.”