A Kogi State senator, Dino Melaye, outwitted a well-armed contingent of anti-robbery police officers during a half-hearted attempt to arrest him in Abuja on Thursday.
Mr. Melaye, representing Kogi West Senatorial District, manoeuvred himself out of the premises of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Maitama Thursday night, circumventing over a dozen officers from police Special Anti-Robbery Squad who were deployed to the location to arrest him.
The stand-off began on Thursday afternoon when Mr. Melaye was arraigned by the police for allegedly providing false information to homicide detectives in an attempt to implicate his political rivals in Kogi State.
Mr. Melaye drew a mixture of empathy and scorn when he raised an alarm in April 2017, telling reporters he was a target of assassination sponsored by Edward Onoja, the Chief of Staff to Governor Yahaya Bello, and other officials in the state.
The police initially took six suspects into custody — including a local government chairman— based on the account of the incident provided by Mr. Melaye. Mr. Onoja was not arrested at the time, but he was reported to have been investigated over the matter.
But things became complicated for Mr. Melaye when an audio emerged of a phone conversation in which the senator could be heard allegedly telling Mohammed Audu, a son of the late Kogi politician, Abubakar Audu, how he falsely incriminated Mr. Onoja and others in the purported attempt to assassinate him.
After examining the recorded phone conversation, following a petition by Mr. Onoja, the police charged Mr. Melaye for perjury.Read more.
