How Dino Melaye and Festus Keyamo Brought

Comedy Out of Politics with Their Outbursts

“Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff?”

Tina Fey’s observation is very much on point in the face of the comedic war of words between the spokesman for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign organisation and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Dino Melaye. As they hurl insults across the bench at each other, one cannot help but be reminded of retired prostitutes fighting over the specifics of the glory days.

Keyamo and Melaye are seemingly at each other’s throats once again. This came about because Keyamo has started to excellently do what he was appointed to do, which is discredit PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Naturally, Melaye is also hard at work while mostly defending Atiku and unceasingly categorising APC and whoever subsists under their umbrella as irredeemable morons.

As if acting out a comedic script, Keyamo starts by calling Atiku an inexperienced onlooker in the political arena, one who is neither qualified for the presidency nor competent as a leader in state affairs. Then Keyamo takes a step back from the stage. Melaye immediately comes on stage, clears his throat, and looks into the camera to say that Keyamo’s comment is  “myopic, porous, parochial, and intellectually stagnant.”

And because he is Melaye and has enough words to beat down an angry adult elephant, he goes on to say that Keyamo is a failure of a minister and is as relevant to his ministry as he is to the political machinery that will eventually grant Nigerians a solid and reliable president come 2023. To which Keyamo scowls and consults his notes on how to respond to Melaye’s slurs.  

To the informed onlooker, all of this is in jest, as both men are simply plying their trade, diligent and industrious. Thus, in response to their outbursts, smart Nigerians are not at all affected, except when they try to hold in their laughter.