Kogi lawmaker, Senator Dino Melaye, has been arrested and detained by operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) in Abuja on Tuesday, April 24, 2018.
The lawmaker’s arrest comes a day after he was arrested by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, while he was on his way to Morocco for an official engagement on Monday, April 23.
Early on Tuesday, he had announced that he would pay a visit to police authorities after officers raided his Abuja home on Monday and his police escorts were withdrawn.
However, despite his willingness to turn himself in, a report by Vanguard revealed that Senator Melaye was forcefully arrested on Tuesday and might have briefly struggled with the operatives who carried out the arrest.
The report also revealed that the lawmaker was taken to the SARS detention facility located just opposite the old Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN junction along the Area 1 expressway, a detention facility reputed to house hardened criminals.
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Melaye a wanted man
Melaye was wanted for questioning over his alleged involvement in a case of unlawful possession of prohibited firearms.
After criminal suspects Kabiru Saidu, a.k.a Osama, and Nuhu Salisu, aka Small, were arrested at Ogojueje in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi on January 19, 2018, they confessed to the police that Senator Melaye hired them to cause unrest in the state ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Despite police authorities extending several public invitations to the lawmaker asking him to come in and answer questions about the allegations at its Kogi command, he refused to honour the invitations, alleging that the police was colluding with the Kogi State government to cause him harm.
He was officially declared wanted by the police on March 28, the day he was due to be arraigned in court over the charges of criminal conspiracy and unlawful possession of prohibited firearms alongside Osama and Small who escaped from their prison cell. Both of them were rearrested before April 1, but the lawmaker refused to honour the invitation from authorities unless the questioning was transferred to the Abuja command.
