And Dino Melaye sunk low, by Tunde Rahman

I have never been a fan of controversial Senator Dino Melaye from Kogi State. He began his sojourn in the Senate advertising his numerous exotic cars and personalised wine on the social networking site Facebook. It wasn’t quite long after that infamous action that he disowned a popular actress whose pregnancy many who knew their close relationship swore he was responsible for. Sometimes I wonder how the electoral system threw up a man of questionable character like Melaye to represent Kogi West in the Senate, as opposed to a more decent Senator Smart Adeyemi, who contested on the Peoples Democratic Party platform, though the politically wary in that state would tell you that our highly-revered former Nigerian Union of Journalists President, Adeyemi, shot himself on the foot by trying to sit tight as Kogi West Senator against the established convention for representation in the area.
The same Melaye fought on the floor of the House of Representatives the other day over a motion and had to be suspended for a year around 2010. Rather than contest on the basis of superior idea and presentation, he traded blows on the floor of the hallowed chamber, throwing the House into a rowdy session, his dress torn in the process. As if the disgrace advertised on national television was not enough, the people of Kogi State rewarded him with a higher office.
Melaye sunk into a new low during the week in the Senate, threatening to rape and beat up Senator Oluremi Tinubu, wife of All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Mrs. Tinubu’s offence was that she called for caution in respect of a demand by some Senators that the upper legislative chamber go for the “jugular” in dealing with the forgery case instituted against Senate President Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and two others. It was at a closed-door session and we may not have been privileged to vividly capture all that transpired at the session. Melaye denied that he threatened to beat up and impregnate Senator Tinubu, but at the same news conference in Abuja where he issued the denial, he again betrayed his mental state, saying he could not have threatened to impregnate her because “biologically it is even impossible to impregnate Mrs. Tinubu because she has arrived at menopause”.
For the life of me, it’s high time the nation re-awakened that call for psychiatric test as a requirement for contesting election into high public office because of the eccentricity often displayed by lawmakers like Melaye. We need a psychiatric and drug test to determine the state of mental health of our public officers. In the meantime, however, when politicians went gibberish like Melaye, it shows they are headed for the downhill. And no response can be more apt to Melaye’s notoriety than the one by Sunday Dare, Asiwaju Tinubu’s Special Adviser Media and Chief of Staff, who tweeted on his twitter handle thus: “Dino Melaye sunk to the lowest level ever today. From this point it is downhill for him.” Is Melaye headed for the downhill? I think so!