Ibrahim Shuiabu in Kano
A former Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye, yesterday publicly apologised to former President Goodluck Jonathan over the role he and others played in the 2015 general election.
Melaye tendered the apology at the launch of a book entitled, “Dear President Goodluck Jonathan (An Open Letter),” written by a Nigerian journalist, Bonaventure Phillips Melah.
Melaye was among many Nigerians who put up fierce campaigns to ensure Jonathan, then incumbent president, lost the 2015 presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari.
But in his goodwill message at the book launch, Melaye said he was once blind but can now see based on the recent unfolding of events.
He recounted how tumultuous his life has been over the last five years to the extent he almost took his own life.
He also praised the former president for making that final call to step down for the incoming president at the time, Buhari, and prayed to receive Jonathan’s type anointing.
He said: “I Senator Dino Melaye, I want to say openly here that after many things that have happened and events that have unfolded in recent times, I want to say openly here that once I was blind, now I can see.
“In 2017, I was arrested 18 times, there were more times in 2018 and between then and now, I have been taken to court for twelve different cases and out of those cases, we have won eleven of them. “And that only one that borders on attempted suicide.
“I wonder how someone like me who likes cars and love life so well would want to kill himself.
“President Goodluck Jonathan, I want to say that on behalf of all of us who shot blindly, we are sorry.
“The one that I later wondered why you did was that phone call.
”I sometimes wondered that if you had not made that call, we would not be where we are today.
“But after I saw what is happening in America, where President Trump is saying I no go gree, I can now see the reason for that call.
“There are very few people like you. I pray for that anointing.”
