The Ondo state governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko has formally defected from Labour Party (LP) to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), giving reasons why he left the party in 2006 and why he has returned with members of the LP on which platform he was elected twice as governor.
Governor Mimiko, who was formally received into PDP today by Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Aso Villa, Abuja, recalled that he left PDP in the first place because, at some time in history, the room for democracy in the party got greatly conscripted.
“Thus, some eight years ago, when we had need to run for office and the space for internal democracy within PDP had considerably shrank, we chose to leave, but then, not to align with the then emergent opposition party in the land, the ACN.
“Precisely, on December 14, 2006, we publicly announced LP as our choice of platform. To the glory of God, four months later, in the April 14, 2007 election, we got the mandate of our people go govern Ondo state. Although our election was stolen by the political tendency in power in Abuja at that time, thanks to a judiciary that continues to be profoundly alert to its duty in a democracy, we managed to retrieve our mandate two years later.”
Governor Mimiko said that he is aware that Nigeria has always ended up as two-party state and that the current dispensation has thrown up PDP and what he called “fledgling APC.”
He said that in the process, smaller parties are constrained at operating only at the fringe of the political process with all the restrictions thereto for greater political involvement and action.
“Historically, every attempt to build a third force in this bipolar environment has not only been quite expensive bu actually met with muted success. What is more, the argument is unassailable that the two party dominant system has always worked to enhance national unity and facilitated the process of nation-building as all key players are invariably compelled to work within either of the two dominant parties without regard to religious, regional and ethnic specificities.”
Governor Mimiko said that for him and the LP chieftains to want to align with either of the two dominant political forces in the current dispensation is, in the circumstance, the correct democratic position they have to take at this historical juncture.
The governor made it clear that he and his LP chieftains have always supported the Jonathan Presidential project, recalling that in 2011, even from LP platform, “we endorsed, worked for and voted massively for Jobathan.
“This did not prevent us from working for LP candidates where it fielded candidates in subsequent polls. With the 2015 INEC time table, which put Presidential and National Assembly elections on the same day, it has become obvious that the type of support we need to give President Jonathan without creating conflict of interest is better canalize through the President’s political party, the PDP.”
The governor stressed that the target of the LP chieftains who defected to PDP is to help the process of getting President Jonathan elected in 2015, adding: “we hope to be part of the process of creating, especially in the South West, a solid and robust platform of involvement in the election of the President, governors and legislators and post election governance structure which will help to engender rapid socio-economic development.
Senate President, David Mark, Delta state governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, National Deputy National Chairman of PDP and
Chief of Staff to President Jonathan were on hand to welcome governor Mimiko back to PDP even as the former governor of Osun state, Chief Gbenga Daniel was among those that accompanied Mimiko to Aso Rock. [myad]
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