"CUSTOMS CG CAN'T BE CAMPAIGNING FOR YOU"- DINO HITS BUHARI ON RETURN TO SENATE

Dino Melaye, the senator representing Kogi West at the National Assembly, is only two days old at the Senate since his ordeal with the Police and the court in both Abuja and Kogi State, but he is ruffling feathers already.

On Thursday — a day after asking to be allowed to seat with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators on return to plenary for the first time in nearly two months — Melaye stopped short of asking President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Hameed Ali, Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), as Chairman of the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO).

“The Comptroller-General of customs is the chairman of the Buhari campaign organization; the Comptroller-General is a rank and shouldn’t lead a campaign organization,” he said.

Ali it was who led the BSO to Buhari’s office on May 22 for a conversation that led into Buhari suggesting that a former president (ostensibly Olusegun Obasanjo) spent $16bn on power projects with nothing to show for it.

During the conversation, the President also lambasted the National Assembly, saying: “Let anybody come and confront me publicly in the National Assembly. What have they been doing?

“Some of them have been there for 10 years. What have they been doing?”

Melaye has now made it clear that the comments did not go down well with him.

“Sen. Dino Melaye cites Order 14 states that Mr. President through Channels and AIT insulted @nassnigeria saying he does not know what they are doing and many of us have been here for over 10 years yet, have nothing to show for it,” the official handle of the Senate tweeted later.

“This statement is demeaning to the @nassnigeria,” Melay said. “I call on Mr. President to apologize on the statement issued by him to the National Assembly.”