The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has likened Dino Melaye, the senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District at the National Assembly, to a “misfit hunter, whose misfired dane gun got his fingers burnt, and he becomes the hunted”.

In the June edition of EFCC ALERT, a monthly magazine of the anti-corruption agency, Melaye was lampooned for his “chameleon-like behavior, championing the anti-corruption campaign when he was an ordinary citizen but doing the exact opposite once in position of power”.

The piece — titled ‘Dino, an anti-corruption crusader’? — recalled the remarks made by Ibrahim Magu. Acting Chairman of the EFCC, during his second confirmation appearance before the Senate: “Dino is [our] friend; we were fighting corruption together till he got to this house and abandoned us.”

The anti-graft agency criticised Melaye’s recent launch of the book, ‘Antidotes For Corruption: The Nigerian Story’, describing it as the “parable of a misfit hunter whose misfired dane gun got his fingers burnt, and he becomes the hunted”.

“The book is a show and an insult on the sensibilities of Nigerians,” EFCC quoted Itse Sagay, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, as saying of the book written by Melaye.

“Dino advising us on corruption is the biggest joke of the year. Maybe the author thinks we are suffering from forgetory (syndrome). If the book is meant to be a joke, we are not laughing.”

The article further read: “Dino’s chaotic and scandal-plagued time in the corridors of power, portrays a man adorned with the beard of narcissism, driven by insatiable thirst for the water of self-adulation, and acknowledgement of his burly voice.

“Dino Melaye’s recently launched book… is, to say the least, ‘an affront to the Federal Government and the EFCC’s anti-corruption war’.

“Indeed, Nigerians are far from impressed that a book purporting to be providing antidotes to corruption was coming from Dino – a man whose very own steps are rife with unmentionable scandals.”