If anyone had told me just a few months ago that Mr. Peter Obi, the immediate past governor of Anambra State, would ever defect from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for whatever reason, I will rebuff the person because of my perception of Obi as the symbolic representation of the late Dim Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu (the strongest advocate of APGA) and the former governor’s avowals on his unflinching commitment to the ideals of the party.
This article is not entirely about de fection, but the underpinnings of the latest defector, 60-year-old Governor Olusegun Rahman Mimiko of Ondo State, a physician and an iconoclastic politician who just equally defected from Labour Party (LP) to the PDP.
I wonder whether the late Alhaji Aminu Kano of the Second Republic People’s Redemption Party (PRP) could have abandoned the PRP for the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) which was the equivalent of the PDP. It is unthinkable and unimaginable that the Talakawa champion could have done that no matter the pressure from any quarter. Just as the late Kano was the PRP leader, Mimiko was not just the associational anchor and illuminator of LP but the lifeblood and essence of the party having been the first and only Labour candidate to win governorship election in Nigeria.
In fact, if not for the quintessential governance exhibited by Dr. Mimiko, I would have concluded that the national honour bestowed on him last month by President Goodluck Jonathan was a ploy to, finally, drag him to the ruling party.
Having eminently qualified for the national recognition, it would be wrong to link the award to the moves for his defection.
Any such insinuation can only come from an oppositional addle-head. Having established this, can we now look at the morality of it all? Dr. Mimiko had some time ago vowed that he would never become a member of the PDP! In Nigerian brand of politics, there are no cast-iron interests which give room for vacillation and phony realignments of hitherto irreconcilable strange-bedfellows.I will, however, pardon Dr. Mimiko for jettisoning LP in preference to the PDP for reasons adduced below. One point must be underscored: the PDP members who leave at any stage end up returning to the same party after rigmarole. Also, most other party members who defect somewhat head for the ruling party! That has been the pattern in Nigeria since the days of the NPN—the only difference being that the velocity of defection was not alarming as obtains now like volcanic eruptions. Gov. Mimiko’s good governance template should be emulated by other governors. Let me randomly point out just a few of the thresholds why this helmsman is exemplary. His establishment of a Deep Sea Port in the southern belt of Ondo State shows a visionary leader with an inclination for the rapid transformation of the state. He is not like most other governors who will sink boreholes which some youth corps members do these days—and thereafter take pages of newspapers and magazines to announce their ludicrous ‘achievement’!
Another feat of this foresighted administrator is his investment in the reengineering and holistic modernization of the Industrial Development Centre in
Obe-Ile, Akure, the state capital. From what I gleaned, it is clearly a model citadel in Nigeria. As we go along, just take note of the quality and pattern of growing a state by a committed chief executive.
Elsewhere, what you get is a whitewash of colonial structural relics which are passed off as new projects by thievish men in power. You need to go to South East for the appreciation of this fact.
The Ondo State government under Mimiko has invested approximately N600 million so far and still counting in safe motherhood with two million
beneficiaries already registered in the 12 local government areas of the state.
Equally in 2010, his regime paid N82 million pension arrears to retired primary school teachers numbering 1,576. These are hapless people owed since 2003. The amount may not be huge, but is shows a physician with a humane disposition.
Most of his peers do not care a hoot about such Nigerians who keep dying in their droves due to pension indifference by government functionaries who misappropriate the funds meant for such statutory payments.
On November 1, 2010, Gov. Mimiko performed the ground-breaking ceremony of the Arakale road massive expansion in addition to three other similar highway accretions. The interesting aspect of these highway projects is that an Ondo indigene working in Uyo had, after reading my laudatory article on the supersonic renewal of Katsina urbanity two months ago, invited me to visit Ondo State and see what their governor was breathtakingly doing unannounced!
I called him to find out if he was working for the state or Gov. Mimiko so as to know where he was coming from because of the unusualness of such an invitation and he said he was a businessman who had never met his governor or his proxies! What other testament can be better than this? Your good works on earth will always speak for you in any gathering of men and even in heaven.
With this kind of third-party testimonial, I no longer need to visit the state to see
things for myself. Recently, Gov. Mimiko inaugurated the biggest Microsoft Academy Agreement in the world. Without information
and communication technology which begins with computer appreciation, no individual or state can compete in global arenas. This realization must have informed this futuristic development with immediate benefits too as the state administration will be on auto drive while this is being institutionalized. We are not talking of accident-prone motorbikes and tricycles which some governors celebrate as economic empowerment
schemes in this 21st century! No farmers, no nation! At the Ore Agro-business City in Ore is a 10,000-hectare cassava farmland. With the mechanization of agricultural cultivation here, Ondo State will soon be a food basket. The state’s golf course and Idanre hills are capable of rejuvenating and regenerating life with their lush expanses and recreational facilities of world standard.
Other social infrastructures unprecedentedly imprinted by Gov. Mimiko are the Ondo State Agbebiye Initiative set up to achieve zero maternal deaths in the state, seven new mega schools, N62 million housing loan disbursed to workers, polio eradication, earmarking of N3 billion for the implementation of various programmes, tetanus elimination afoot, Mimiko’s Mechanic Village and Ore Sunshine City catalyzed by a turbine power plant.For the aforementioned achievements and copious others that space constraint has incapacitated me from mentioning here, I plead we excuse Mimiko’s defection as the hood does not make the monk. He surely will do better this time round considering his leadership pedigree and best governance credentials.
I can vouch for his anticipatory performance based on his antecedents as governor of this professorial state. I just hope that with Mimiko’s defection
LP would not become an appendage of the PDP! It is also my expectation that his passion for discovering Ondo will continue to blossom like his delectably ravishing spouse, Olukemi. Your Excellency, on an advisory parting note, do not have anything to do with the forthcoming
LP convention—instead use the resources to pay 100% (not your conventionally commendable 50%) 13th month salary to Ondo workers! Gov Mimiko’s zestfulness for transforming Ondo is widely noted. His defection remains a puzzle!
(The Sun)
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