Keeping his followers up to speed on his Twitter handle, the cat and mouse game, (some say Tom and Jerry) and run around Abuja may have led to the arrest of Senator Dino Melaye’s brother, Moses, and an unnamed friend of his around the lawmaker’s home in the highbrow Maitama District in Abuja on Monday.
“Our action, according to the Police, “was prompted by the fact that he was invited in a case of unlawful possession of firearms and other crimes.
“The police had invited him on more than two or three occasions but he failed to honour the invitations. That is why we are there right now.
“You know when a case is in court, there is no law that stops you from further questioning if you need to answer question on the suspects.
“There is no law that stops the police from further inviting him or asking question about the case,” the Force Deputy Spokesman, Adeniran Aremu told The Nation.
The drama, which began early Monday morning with the arrest of the Kogi lawmaker by the Nigerian Immigrations Service at the airport in Abuja after he was disembarked from a Morroco-bound flight.
After he was released from the airport by the Immigrations Service, Act One Scene Two kicked off.
Initial reports that he had returned to his home is now doubtful as no one has spotted him there.
He disclosed in a tweet that about 30 armed Police personnel had surrounded his house, with all entry and exit points blocked with Police vehicles.
To pep up the drama, some youths said to have come from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Kuchigoro, Abuja, stormed Melaye’s home, protesting his persecution by the Police.
They said they were protesting because the Senator is their benefactor, meeting their needs.
Recall that after weeks of hide and seek, the Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye, has been arrested.
The National Immigrations Service (NIS) spokesman, Mr. Sunday James, has since admitted that the lawmaker was picked by the Service based on what he termed “instructions”.
Melaye broke the news of his arrest on his Twitter handle and confirmed it in an interview with The Punch newspaper and narrated the drama that followed.
”Myself and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and others were to be on an official trip to Morocco but while some have gone through the Lagos airport today, others are to depart tomorrow.
“I got to this airport I was checked in and was already in the lounge waiting for departure. Immigration officers invited me that there is a directive from the police that I can’t travel; that I am on their watch list. And I said it was not true, that the INTERPOL said they had not issue an alert on me. I opened INTERPOL’s website and showed them the denial. But they insisted that it was based on the directive from the police.
“I was disembarked and asked me to go to their office (at the airport). They snatched my passport but I snatched my thing back from them. I got it back! I’m still here with them. They circled me and said they were waiting for further instructions from the police.”
He said on his Twitter handle that he was picked up at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport as he made to depart for Morroco for an official engagement.
Melaye and the Police have been involved in a queer drama after two men paraded by the Police claimed they worked for him and son of late Kogi Governor, Mohammed Abubakar Audu, and he supplied them with firearms.
The men were among those who escaped from Police detention in Lokoja, Kogi State, but were later rearrested.