Nigerian Writer Slams Dino Melaye, Says If You Were In America, You Would Be In Jail

Pius Adesanmi, a Nigerian writer wrote this on his Facebook
page about 6 hours ago.

It is not what you are thinking. What showcases Dino Melaye
as evidence of the irreparable decay of Nigeria’s core – if we ever had a core
as a people and a nation-state – is not the luxury car showroom that he has
opened up on the parking lot of the National Assembly. It is not his constant
displays of above-your-legitimate-income opulence. After all, because more than
90% of Nigerians live above their means, we have decided that what is done in
civilization is not for us. What is done in civilization is that at the
slightest hint of living above your means, Big Brother visits you seeking
explanations.

If Bill and Hillary Clinton were to suddenly buy even three
of Dino Melaye’s cars, they could go to jail if they were unable to account for
the cars. Barack and Michelle Obama have been saying that they want to hang
around Washington, DC after the White House so that their daughter can complete
high school. Good for them but Uncle Sam is already waiting and watching. Uncle
Sam wants to see what kind of house they are going to buy in Washington and in
which neighbourhood. Uncle Sam wants to see what kinds of cars they will use.
Uncle Sam has a pretty good idea of how much they have ever earned their entire
lives. Uncle Sam has a rough idea of what they will be earning after the White
House. If they display half of Dino Melaye’s opulence after eight years in the
White House, they could go to jail.

As already stated, I am not evaluating Dino Melaye on this
basis because his life above his means does not violate our ethos and values in
Nigeria. He is not in contravention of our ethics and collective morality. But
he is also a wife molester. He is of a very violent disposition. Pictures of
badgered and battered and bloodied women who have had the misfortune of crossing
his path litter the internet. Police case files are readily available if you
care to Google. And very recently, he decided that physical violence against
women is not enough, symbolic violence against Nigerian womanhood must be added
to his tally of Nigerian cred. On the floor of Nigeria’s rotten Senate, he
urged his colleagues to consider acquiring made-in-Nigerian women. Evidently,
Nigerian women rank less than his cars in his estimation.

In civilization, it is not possible to have photos of beaten
and bloodied women on your plate and be elected a Senator. And if such evidence
of a long history of violence against women came to light after your election,
it could mark the end of your career and, most importantly, your social
standing. Does anybody still remember Senator John Edwards who nearly became
Vice President of the United States? He is history. He now lives in obscurity.
In Nigeria, a violent woman beater like Dino Melaye is not just in the Senate,
his social and political capital is intact. He is still a big man – entitled to
everything that goes with that territory in Nigeria.

One thing that goes with the territory of being an
accredited and NAFDAC-certified big man in Nigeria is your superiority over the
citizenship of the ordinary Nigerian. If you are a big man, the ordinary
Nigerian is your floor mat and your toilet paper rolled into one. The more you
trample upon his human dignity, the more you empty his citizenship of meaning,
the more he adores and adulates and worships you. When he sees evidence of all
that you have stolen from him, he admires you and uses you as testimony: the
God that provided Dino Melaye’s mansions and cars will also provide my own.
Dino has arrived. God has blessed him. That is why you see these Nigerians
forming a football supporters’ club around Dino Melaye’s cars on the parking
lot of the National Assembly. In civilization, citizens would detain those cars
and call the authorities.

When you consider Dino Melaye’s status and standing in
Nigeria; when you consider the fact that our morality, ethos, and values confer
legitimacy on him precisely because of ill-begotten wealth and his propensity
to beat women, then you will understand why Sahara Reporters recently sent a
white Reporter to ask him questions that no Nigerian journalist or media house
would dare to ask a “Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic”! Nigerians
have been having a good laugh over Dino’s spirited efforts to escape from that
white reporter.

What many Nigerians miss is that the reasons that made Omoyele
Sowore send a white reporter after Dino Melaye devolve from the worthlessness
of the citizenship of the Nigerian vis-à-vis the Nigerian big man. Tragically,
the worthlessness of his citizenship is always the handiwork of the Nigerian.
He is the one who maintains and services that worthlessness on behalf of the
big man. You will notice that until the appearance of that white journalist,
Dino Melaye was having a blast amidst throngs of Nigerian youths admiring him
and angling for selfies.

What Sowore is telling you is that he understands that your
citizenship is so worthless that had a Nigerian journalist dared to ask Dino
Melaye the same questions as that white journalist, he would have ordered him
beaten to a pulp right there in broad daylight, before phoning the Lagos Police
Commissioner and ordering him to come and arrest the said journalist and
nothing, absolutely nothing, would have happened. The youth looking for selfies
with Dino would even have joined in harassing such a Nigerian citizen for daring
to question “a whole Senator”. Shior! Useless journalist! You no get respect?

Many Nigerians have been making that episode about the race
of the white journalist who dared to ask Dino to account for the source of his
opulence. No, it is not about race. It is about the value and supremacy of that
journalist’s citizenship of a country in modernity and civilization. What
Sowore understood only too well is that Dino Melaye may be an arrogant and
bullish Nigerian big man used to trampling on the rights of ordinary Nigerian
citizens, he would not dare to disrespect the supremacy of a Western citizen.
This is what the Yoruba call “b’aja ba n gbo”.

B’aja ba n gbo is why Dino – an almighty Nigerian Senator
who would have beaten his own fellow Nigerian to a pulp – was shaking like an
antelope who just saw a lion when confronted with the citizenship of a
Westerner. B’aja ba n gbo means that a crazy dog may do all the gragra in this
world and bark and harass visitors, such a dog must still bow to the supremacy
of its human owner.

If you still think that this is about race, fast forward to
London and let us encounter Imo state Governor, Rochas Okorocha, at Chatham
House. As we all know, Okorocha is another misguided oaf ruining a state in
Nigeria and doing big man all over our public sphere. If you are an ordinary
Nigerian and you cross Okorocha’s path in Nigeria, well, you know what his
aides and guards and thugs would do to you. And nothing will happen because
your citizenship is worthless before the actors and institutions of Nigerian
statehood.

But in London, a pro-Biafran protester crossed Okorocha’s
path. The protester claimed his right to protest, to heckle, to proclaim
himself a proud Biafran. For much less in Nigeria, the Nigerian state is mass
shooting people like that Biafran protester. The Nigerian state has even only
recently appeared to be saying that the cows of Fulani herdsmen are superior to
the citizenship of the Nigerian, hence the government will import grass from
Brazil to sort out the cows first before addressing the question of lives lost
during protests. To date, nobody has been arrested for shooting protesters. And
citizens who held a meeting with the police to declare that they murdered their
own fellow citizens because their cows were killed walked out of that meeting,
their heads held high.

The Biafran who crossed Okorocha’s path in London and lived
to tell the story is not white. Poor Okorocha! He had no way of telling if the
guy has dual citizenship. You do not want to go and harass a British citizen in
Britain. Okorocha would have been taught the value of citizenship had anything
happened to that guy. The sad part is that the protester doesn’t even have to
be a British citizen to enjoy his full rights to human dignity. He would still
have enjoyed full protection of the state had Okorocha forgotten where he was
momentarily and had the guy assaulted. Okorocha would have been prevented from
returning to Nigeria. He’d be in London now facing assault charges. Okorocha
respected himself by bowing to the supremacy of the citizen in London. That is
b’aja ba n gbo at work.

So, what unites the pro-Biafra Nigerian protester in London
and the white journalist who accosted Dino Melaye is that both men confronted
two Nigerian brutes while operating within the orbit of Western
conceptualizations of the supremacy of the citizen. This is what citizenship is
in modernity. This is what citizenship is in civilization. This is why I can
neither sleep nor rest until the Nigerian attains this level of citizenship.

But you, Nigerian, must also understand that the Dino
Melayes and Rochas Okorochas of this world will never grant you this level of
citizenship. It is not in their interest for you to attain the level of
consciousness and enlightenment that could free you from the hold they have
over you. The hold they have over you is psychological terrorism. That is why
you believe that, as big men, they are entitled to the things they do to you as
citizens of Nigeria. To sustain their right to empty your citizenship of worth and
trample upon your human dignity, their class has destroyed education in
Nigeria.

But you must remember that in the Yoruba philosophy of b’aja
ba n gbo, there are two actors in the scenario: a dog and a human being. The
Yoruba are saying that the mad, barking dog must know when to bow to the
superiority of its human owner. That philosophy encapsulates the relationship
between you and your leaders in a democracy. They are the dogs who must
recognize and bow to the supremacy of your citizenship.

You, Nigerian citizen, are the owner of the dog. Act your
part!