Melaye continues lamentations, claims opposition teamed up against him in Kogi guber

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last Saturday’s governorship election in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye, has alleged that some unnamed political enemies met to decide “he must become a distant third” in the contested election.

Melaye, who spoke on Monday during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, also claimed there was over-voting in 17 of the 21 local government areas of the state.

“A meeting was held and they said, ‘Dino Melaye must not come second because if he comes second, it’s dangerous… so, he must become a distant third.’ There was no election; there was only allocation of votes,” he alleged.

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Ripples Nigeria reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Usman Ododo, who polled 446,237 votes the winner of the election.

Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) came second with 259,052 votes, while Melaye scored 46,362.

“Normally, Ajaka should not be excited that he won one, two, or three local governments in the East. It was allocated,” Melaye said.

According to him, the same thing happened in the February 25 presidential election.

“Lagos was given to Labour,” he said. “Labour should not think they won [in] Lagos; it was deliberate. The mathematics was done. The arithmetic was done.”

He further argued that the 2023 New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, was “given Kano, knowing fully well that other states had been padded.”

In Melaye’s view, this was the “exact same formula that was used in Kogi State”.

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