Mr. Abidemi Adeyemi, the minority whip of the Kogi State House of Assembly aspired for the ticket of the All Progressives Congress, APC for Kogi West Senatorial District but failed to the eventual nominee, Dino Melaye in the party primary. In this interview he gives his perspectives of what transpired prior to and following the election asserting that the declaration of Dino Melaye would not stand the test of time. Excerpts:
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
You contested the Senatorial ticket under the platform of APC in December 2014, but we understand that you are still raising issues of irregularities against the eventual winner, Hon Dino Melaye. How did it all happen?
I have always said it both on the social media and the print media that Dino Melaye did not win the Kogi West senatorial primaries of the APC in December 2014. He did not defeat me at all. I insist that the result of the primaries which was presented to INEC was forged. There was no primary and the INEC report certified that there was no primary in Kogi West. I didn’t contest with him. He ran away with the material. So, where did he get the figures?
Could t be that the primaries was conducted in a different place?
That is questionable because close to 2,000 delegates were present in Kabba, the Senatorial Headquarters. So, did he contest his own primaries with trees when over 2,000 certified delegates were in Kabba waiting for the material to come? How did he stage-manage his own in Lokoja to have come up with a result?
So, why did you not go to court over that matter before the general election?
Abidemi Adeyemi
In fairness, we would have gone to court, but we saw Dino as someone that lacks the capacity to win the election.
Could it be possible that all the petitions you wrote did not get to the headquarters?
I was in the headquarters for one week personally. I met with the party leaders, the legal team, I was even in the office of the National Chairman and all the papers received were duly stamped. Are they now saying that they didn’t see the INEC report in the national dailies as well indicting APC and Dino of not conducting primaries?
Now that, Dino has been elected as a Senator, is the case not closed?
The case is not closed at all. It is like a criminal case, you cannot say because somebody steals today and you didn’t catch him, so if you catch him five years after you will not prosecute him. It is a pre-election matter and we are pursuing it. Though Dino has been declared an elected Senator and by God’s grace, he will be disgraced out of that position. There was no party resolution to the effect that he is a candidate and there was no primary. Dino is trying to short-change the Nigerian Constitution. He is not eligible to be a Senator and that is why the judiciary will remove him in no time. I can assure you about that.
Have you initiated any legal effort to ensure his removal?
I am five hundred percent joining all legal efforts to remove him, so long as it is within the legal framework. Dino cannot represent me, he cannot represent my people, he cannot represent my family and he cannot represent my tribe.
As a party man, did you reach out to Hon. Dino, over the APC ticket?
Politics is not by force. Party is not by force. If a man has stolen my mandate, in essence, I’m the one that is supposed to occupy the office which he is. That is the implication.
Essence of labour
How will I now reach out to such a person? Darkness and light cannot live together. Whether he reaches out to me or I reach out to him, I can’t work with Dino. We are not in the same league.
You eventually contested the Senatorial ticket on the platform of the LP, What is the strength of the Labour Party in Kogi West?
It’s a very weak party. It’s a party we are looking at as the party of the future because we felt the more developed a society is, the more there is a tendency to understand the essence of labour.
But there is the belief that the Labour Party is losing its steam don’t you think the light might be dimming for the party?
The political history of every party, every nation, there is a time that looks like that. But just as I said, Labour Party is a party of the future.
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