- Ekiti gov, too, threatens to jump ship
Baring any last minute change of mind, the outgoing governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, will soon become a card-carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress. Mimiko, The Point gathered authoritatively, has concluded all arrangements for his eventual defection to the APC, either shortly before the expiration of his tenure on February 25, 2017 or immediately after his tenure lapses.
A competent source close to the governor, who is also privy to all the underground moves, following the glitch that destabilised the Senator Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party in the run up to the just concluded governorship election in Ondo State, confirmed that it was just a matter of time before Mimiko moved to the ruling party.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, because he was not authorised to speak on such a sensitive issue told The Point that Mimiko’s meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the heat of the substitution of Eyitayo Jegede’s name with that of business mogul, Jimoh Ibrahim as PDP candidate ahead of the election, was actually to discuss the modalities for Mimiko’s eventual movement to the APC.
He said, “Mimiko had been meeting with the APC candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu, and other leaders in the state. But he feels that it would be better to get things done from the top, for a solid arrangement.
“That was the essence of his meeting with the President. Though he told your colleagues that he was in Aso Rock to discuss the Ondo impasse with the President, I can confirm to you that the speculation of his defection to the APC is true.” When Mimiko eventually moves, it would not be the first time he is cross-carpeting through parties.
At the advent of the present political dispensation, he pitched his tent with the Alliance for Democracy and served as commissioner for health in the administration of the late Adebayo Adefarati. He fell out with Adefarati and the AD in 2002 because he was denied the opportunity to contest the governorship, following Adefarati’s decision to go for a second term.
He subsequently pitched his tent with another governor of the state, late Dr. Olusegun Agagu and the PDP, and was believed to have contributed to Adefarati’s loss in the 2003 gubernatorial election.
He served as the secretary to the state government under Agagu and later as minister of housing and urban planning in the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. He resigned to contest the 2007 governorship primary with Agagu. When he was muscled out, he defected once again to the Labour Party, on which platform he contested against his former boss, Agagu, who was eventually declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Mimiko challenged the result of that election, and allegedly backed by a former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whom he promised that he would defect to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, he was declared the duly elected governor of the state by the Appeal Court sitting in Benin on February 24, 2009.
He was the face of the LP in Ondo State till 2014, when, after several speculations that he was returning to the PDP and denials, he returned to the PDP at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on October 2, 2014.
Meanwhile, current developments in the Sunshine State corroborate the planned defection by Mimiko. Shortly after INEC declared Akeredolu the winner of last Saturday’s governorship poll and while his faction of the party urged Jegede, the PDP candidate, to contest the outcome of the poll, Mimiko congratulated Akeredolu on his election as the governorelect of Ondo State.
A keen follower of political events in the state, Mr. Sunday Olugbenga, told The Point that Mimiko allegedly programmed Jegede to fail as part of his grand plan to defect to the APC. He said that while Jegede was battling the Ali Modu Sheriff’s faction of the PDP in court to revalidate his candidacy, Mimiko was secretly romancing with the opposition.
He said, “It was glaring to discerning minds that our governor was only playing to the gallery in his support for Jegede’s candidacy. “Apart from that, his policies in the state also do not give Jegede any chance.
A governor owing civil servants, who constitute the bulk of voters in the state, should have known the outcome of that poll before it actually took place. “But his defection won’t be a surprise to most of us. We have long seen the handwriting on the wall.”
Meanwhile, in what seems like the embattled opposition party being in perpetual disarray since losing power at the centre to the APC, one of its governors, Ayodele Fayose, has also threatened to dump the opposition party for a yet to be named party.
Fayose, on Wednesday, admitted that he might dump the PDP to prosecute his succession battle for the 2018 Ekiti gubernatorial poll.
