The Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko on Thursday in the ancient city of Owo flagged off his re-election campaign with a pledge to work with renewed vigour towards a better Ondo State just as he took swipe at those who want to capture Ondo State to perish the thought.
According to him, Ondo State will never worship on the altar of any foreign god adding that one million godfathers and their District Officers would meet their match on October 20, when the people shall once again speak loudly with their votes as they did in 2007.
Highlights of the occasion include the decamping of a gubernatorial aspirant of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Segun Ojo and over 500,000 of his supporters into the Labour Party (LP) as well as Remi Okunrinboye who also lead over 200,000 supporters from the ACN to the LP.
Mr Mimiko, who lampooned an opposition candidate whom he accused of not only being a foreigner in the state, who did not registered to vote and never even voted in the state before but suddenly woke up with the idea of governing the state, insisted that the people of Ondo State want a committed Governor, not a District Officer.
He said: “In 2007, we promised to work for you; we promised that your concern shall be our concern; that in all seasons, we will work for you; that we shall unleash our incredible creative ingenuity to develop the State. In the last three and a half years, there are empirical facts on the ground that we have deliver on our promises and Ondo State is working again and we are happier. We have in place over 350 projects in all our rural communities dictated by our people themselves.
“Today, we are here again to solicit for your votes again, we want you to vote for us and I sincerely assure you that we shall continue to work for you with renewed vigour. We have been with you; we know your concerns and aspirations and we have been meeting. We know that you want your children to have quality education without you selling your properties. We will continue to work to make Ondo State a real place of pride in Nigeria; we will continue to develop Agriculture, build more roads, build more mega schools for our children, markets for our women, more hospitals, our cities shall be the best cities in Nigeria”
While nothing that the choice of Owo town as the venue of his campaign flag off was symbolic, Mr Mimiko said that Owo was the de facto home of the progressives in Nigeria because in 1951, the Action Group (AG) was founded in Owo, making it the home of brave progressives when many towns were loath to host the group. “And we as inheritors of progressivism in Nigeria, have latched onto this proud heritage and we have taken hook line and sinker the ethos of progressivism in Nigeria and today, Ondo State is a model and the real progressives as opposed to those who just mouth progressivism by mere words of mouths and not in deeds,” Mimiko said.
The governor used the occasion to appeal to the leaders of the Afenifere who have been lampooned by some so called leaders in recent times for daring to identify with him by describing him as following the footsteps of Pa Obafemi Awolowo saying that the whole world salute them for being the proud inheritors of progressivism in Nigeria.
Earlier, duo of Segun Ojo and Remi Okunrinboye noted that Mimiko would win the election owing to his pragmatic leadership style and the unprecedented level of development that he had been able to bring to bear in the State.
In his own speech, Olu Agunloye warned that those who want to bring violence to the State to steer clear.
According to him, performance and not any influential outside or god father would determine the pattern of voting by the people. He said that the people would vote overwhelmingly for Mr Mimiko on October 20, 2012.
In his address, the national Chairman of LP, Dan Nwanyawu urged the people to vote for Mr Mimiko who he noted had performed beyond even the expectations of the party saying that going by his landmark achievements in the State; he deserved to be voted for.
While urging the people to be wary of those whom he noted had vowed to capture the state, Mr Nwanyawu stated that they had no plans for the people as they only wanted to share the peoples’ common resources for their god fathers.
“I must warn you not to votes for these people who are very desperate even when they are not on ground but say they will do everything to capture Ondo State. In LP, we did not impose Mimiko unlike some people who sat in their mansion in Lagos State and select for their party. In fact, one of their leaders openly stated recently that they don’t believe in primaries.
“All they are looking for is to increase their territories; they want to expand and they have not said that Mimiko has not performed but they just want to grab. Please, don’t vote for them because they will ferry your wealth to feather their nests outside Ondo State and destroy the good legacies that Mimiko and other Governors have done in Ondo State as they are doing in the states that they are now governing,” he said.
At the campaign which made Owo to stand still for several hours were leaders of Workers, artisans, market women, and thousands of people from all over who attended the ceremony.
