LEADER of The Progressives group in the last session of the House of Representatives, Dino Melaye, has raised the alarm over threats to his life following his role in what led to former Speaker Dimeji Bankole’s current travails over alleged financial misdemeanour.

Melaye, former member of the Green Chamber from Kogi State, blew the whistle on Bankole’s alleged financial impropriety, which subsequently led to his current prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Melaye, alongside 10 others, was suspended from the House for his hard stance against the leadership style of the former Speaker.

The 11 were later reinstated by the courts shortly before the expiration of the sixth Assembly.

The non-payment of Melaye’s entitlements and that of his other suspended colleagues led to the call by the agitated legislator, who exposed the now celebrated N10 billion bank loan Bankole procured without due process.

Hinging his move on the determination to ensure that the image of the House was not soiled over the alleged sundry financial impropriety of the former speaker, Melaye petitioned the EFCC, thus necessitating the eventual arrest and detention of the former number four citizen.

But, Melaye told newsmen in Abuja yesterday that he had been receiving threat messages since the beginning of Bankole’s trial.

He added that on many occasions, he had been threatened with abduction, outright assassination or acid bath, saying that he was forced to cry out this time after he discovered that those who had been threatening him traced him to Ghana and back to Nigeria at the weekend.

His words: “I have been getting these threat messages before I went to Ghana; but I was surprised that upon returning to Nigeria, I got another message detailing all my movements while in Ghana and my location at the time of receiving the message. They reiterated their mission and asked me to be ready for them anytime soon.

“If I had treated these threats as a non-issue before now, the accuracy at which those after me got my movement in Ghana and in Nigeria calls for concern, especially when one takes into consideration the state of insecurity in the country.”

Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has insisted that the trial of the former Speaker must be carried out to logical conclusion, saying that there is enough evidence before the court to show that he (Bankole) actually breached the provisions of Section 311 of the Penal Code Act Cap. 532, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (Abuja) 1990.

In a statement signed by the President-General and Secretary of the congress, Comrades Peter Esele and John Kolawole respectively, the TUC said Bankole was quoted as citing the provisions of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act and the National Assembly Service Commission Act, in which he claimed that no court has the jurisdiction to try him for anything he did while exercising his powers as the speaker of House.

The congress maintained that Bankole and his co-travellers committed a felony to wit: theft as being alleged by the EFCC, and must be punished according to the laws of the land. It said it was wrong for the former speaker to have fraudulently obtained a N38 billion loan without following due process.

Esele said: “On the alleged offence of criminal breach of trust and theft slammed on him, Bankole averred that, as contemplated or defined in the Penal Code, he cannot be said to have committed any crime by obtaining a loan to augment allowances and running costs of members of the House of Representatives in violation of the extant Revised Financial Regulations of the Federal Government of Nigeria, 2009.

“The questions on our lips are: Does Bankole have the right to obtain a secret loan on behalf of the House when the said House is not his private company, and even when the Clark of the House vehemently opposed to such move and advised accordingly?

“Is this gentleman trying to tell us that even if he had sold the rest of us into slavery while in power, no one could query his action? Does this man think that being a speaker means becoming God? Is he saying that once one becomes speaker, he is above the law of the land?”