These Are Interesting Times: The Trouble With Dino By Denrele Animashaun

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. “— Alice Walker

I have written extensively about the same disgraceful display of thuggery of our honourable lawmakers’ men and women, but, they are anything but honourable. Yes, I said it. But there are, a tiny minority who are honourable but the majority have tarred the few with the same brush.

I wrote about in- THIS HOUSE OF DISREPUTE, NOVEMBER 23, 2014:”those that seek evidence that our highest hallowed house accommodates badly behaved and disgraceful men and women, only need to watch the TV and read in the newspapers and bear witness to how uncouth and disgraceful these lawmakers are. For those who are not convinced, I have nothing more to say to them as they have obviously lost their moral compass. What we saw were grown men behaving like rent-a-mob and scaling the fence to force their way into the inner sanctum of the House”. In Order! order! these dishonourable fellows June 2015 and again in JULY 21, 2013 IN DIRTY, ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, where there was rancour in the River State assembly.

I wrote: “They should hang their heads in shame and accept that what happened on the floor of the assembly was truly despicable, period. If grown men, and I mean, grown men behaved in such thuggish manner, waving the mace and using it as a weapon, what example are they displaying to the young ones. No wonder Nigeria is going to the dogs!” So here we are again in 2016, if it is to believed, a senator using language that is unbecoming of the high office.

There is no justification to threaten a woman with rape! No justification. What followed for Melaye, supposedly a damage control to put his own side of the story which failed spectacularly? I am appalled that some of the people reacted as if it was nothing or that he was justified.Melaye recounted that Remi Tinubu called him a thug and then, he called her stupid! wow! It was a case of he said, she said. And she called him a dog, and he stood up and told her that “this was not Bourdillion and as he was not one of those senators who normally come to prostrate to them, I am from Kogi and not from Lagos” So he did not deny anything but he said” I am not a coward” Can someone tell him that it is not what they call you but what you respond to? This is not the way any person should behave talk less a senator.

So he charged towards the female senator and had to be held back by other senator, who remonstrates with him to let peace reign. Why did they not tell him that he misbehaved or are they saying that his behaviour was acceptable? Dino has got his tempers which gets the better of him all the time. He is erratic and out of control. No man should be allowed to get away with such behaviour and it is a conduct not becoming of a senator. He has a bully boy mentality and does not know how to hold a civil conversation and resort to use his fist and putty mouth. He threatened to beat Tinubu up and impregnate her on the floor of the Senate and he boasted that nothing will happen! Why this man is still allowed to walk free? He has no respect for women.

It is typical of him. In one of the runs in with Governor Oshiomhole, whom he accused the governor of importing his wife instead of marrying one from Nigeria. The Governor replied Melaye that “Any responsible individual that is truly worth to be called a senator, a position that convokes respect, decorum, and decent public conduct, should know the limit of his verbal diarrhoea ” This irascible fellow had the temerity to protest his innocence, and denied that he did not say that he would rape the female senator”; It is a lie that I said that I will impregnate Mrs. Tinubu. Biologically, it is even impossible to impregnate Mrs. Tinubu because she arrived menopause” Well, that says it all.

It is about time that all lawmakers, actually anyone holding public office should undergo psychological testing. There is something wrong to think it is right to attack and threaten to rape anyone and think it is justifiable. No woman should have to deal with this criminal behaviour and especially in a country that has one of the highest rate of sexual and physical abuse. No amount of provocation warrants actual threats like this and men like Dino will continue to justify the act of physical or sexual abuse as a provocation. The fact that such behaviour has been normalised and it is casually downplayed and the sad fact that the like of Dino is a poster boy for such heinous behaviour with no regard for women. So how do we expect the ordinary man in the street to behave when it is seen as normal to threaten a woman with public rape at any form of provocation. An attack on one woman is an attack on all women. Black lives matter If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality- Desmond Tutu The last couple of days, the hashtag: Black Life Matters, continue to capture the mood of millions of disenfranchised and marginalised blacks in America and the movement has extended to Europe and beyond. It is a known fact,that being black means you are more likely to be assaulted, stopped and killed by the police than the general white population.

The series of high-profile deaths are captured in the media and streamed live that this injustice can no longer be swept under the rug. The genie is out of the bottle, Americans have got to deal with their history with racism, discrimination, and prejudice that is so enmeshed and systematic in their everyday lives. The self-proclaimed land of the free and the brave has long peddled the American dream mainly for some and not for the others. In reality, the lives of the black people in America is anything but a dream, it has been a con and one sold to millions of people over the centuries.

The movement is a direct response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates American society but not particular to the USA but around the world. THE young people have seized the initiative and mobilised the Black Lives Matters as a vehicle to address the judicial killings of Black people by the police, vigilantes and the systemic structures built to perpetuate the subjugation of black people.

The Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry for justice and the ensuring the validity of Black lives. The stronger the movement, the more that the racist structure wants to dismantle the movement and diminish the message by claiming that all lives matter lives matters! America has failed to admit that there is a state of apartheid and segregation even after the civil right movements and subsequent law to address giving black people the rights to vote and desegregation of its structures. Clearly, this has not worked.