February 16, 2009
Not many people can place an ideological label on the unique political and messianic force of Dr Rahman Olusegun Mimiko which had started as a cool breeze when he began his political career in the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo led Unity Party Of Nigeria (UPN) of the 2nd Republic, shifted to the liberal progressive ideology of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the botched 3rd Republic ; savoured the leftist ideology of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), sought a well deserved gubernatorial seat under the oligarchic umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and finally found an ideological home as a grassroot politician, charismatic leader and an appealing as well as accessible governorship candidate in the progressive camp of the Labour Party (LP).
These whirlwind of political affiliations and ideological overindulgence (?) may seem like negative and unstable political allegiance borne out of a desire to satisfy a burning need to grab political power to a cynical observer but in reality, his multi-party political affiliations over the years had prepared and equipped Dr Mimiko with the political acumen and savvy with which to face the unique political challenges facing him now as he battles to reclaim his stolen mandate for the people of Ondo State. Dr Mimiko has learnt (and these lessons are standing him in good stead now) from his political affiliations that irrespective of what political ideology a political party stood for, the will of the common people and a politician’ ability to feel and represent their most basic desires even in the most rural and obscure places make the difference.
Even before he left the then crumbling vestige of the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s political legacy that was the AD, Dr Mimiko had outside the field of politics gained a reputation as a charismatic and extremely popular leader of men. These qualities were to come in handy when he joined the PDP prior to the 2003 General Elections. Bringing his adroit organisational skill and grassroot appeal into a fledgling Ondo State PDP, he contributed in no small measure to the landslide victory recorded by the PDP in the polls. It was therefore logical when the victorious PDP Government of Chief Olusegun Agagu appointed him the Secretary to the State Government in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the PDP victory in a state that was traditionally an AD stronghold.
It would seem, judging from his rapid ascendancy within the PDP oligarchy, that Dr Mimiko had finally found his political home. Such was his growing clout in the PDP that in July of 2005, it became expedient for him to be drafted into the cabinet of former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo with his appointment as Minister for Housing and Urban Development. Nevertheless, the PDP was to prove a temporal political abode for him as his burning need to serve the people of Ondo state in a higher political office was to cause a conflict of interest between him and the incumbent Governor, Dr Olusegun Agagu thus signalling his departure from the increasingly autocratic setting that was the PDP in Ondo state. Subsequently he resigned his ministerial appointment in December of 2006 to take up membership of the newly formed Labour Party where he formally declared his intention to join the governorship race under the progressive banner of the young party. He ‘d finally found his political home. With his wide political network, charisma and popularity among the grassroot people of Ondo State, it was not in the least surprising when he emerged as the flag bearer of the LP in the April 14, 2007 Gubernatorial election in Ondo state.
Now, the PDP is a political party that brooks no opposition especially from one who ’d turned and bitten the proverbial fingers that fed him and so it was that Dr Mimiko was persecuted to no end by the Ondo State PDP . Sparing no effort in her bid to neutralize his growing political threat, the PDP led state government instigated the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the financial activities of Dr Mimiko as a federal Minister of Housing and Urban Development (classical PDP ‘strong arm’ tactics!) and it is a mark of the man’s honesty that the EFCC investigation turned up zilch on him and thus given a clean bill of health by Nigeria’s foremost anti-corruption Agency, he went ahead to battle the PDP to a standstill at the polls proper.
At this point, one may rightly ask; what makes this man fondly called ‘Iroko’ by political followers tick for the masses of Ondo state? The answer may well lie in the general perception of the man; in a political landscape as ours where political leaders are dour, characterless and downright uninspiring, Dr Mimiko comes across as a new breed politician; charismatic, accessible to all, honest and most importantly, someone with a genuine interest in the plight of his people. They say his words are his bonds and it is the general view of most people in Ondo state that he is one politician who seeks political office, not for pecuniary gains but for a chance to better the life of his people. They say his track records of achievements in office as a two-time commissioner for Health and Secretary to the State government in Ondo State as well as a minister of the Federal republic speak volumes of the measure of the man Iroko.
From the foregoing, it is clear that the generality of the people of Ondo state believe in the man and what he stands for. They do not know whether his “Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus “ conversion from the ‘make we chop alone’ ideology of the PDP to the populist and progressive one of the LP is for real but they believe in the man as a deus ex machina capable of freeing them from the oppressive yokes of an inept PDP administration that has foisted itself on them. The monumental faux pas that was the April 2007 polls in Nigeria will go down as one in which the PDP threw every sense of political decency and electoral decorum (if those ever existed in their constitution) to the wind as in virtually all the 36 states of the federation, the PDP completely deprived the Nigerian people their constitutional rights to choose their own leaders and there’s no where this hijack of the electoral process by the PDP (in active connivance with Maurice Iwu’s INEC) more manifest than in Ondo State.
Need we say anything more of the massive electoral fraud that was witnessed in Ondo State? Need we say anything more of an election where a sitting Deputy Governor was ‘rumoured’ ( and this ‘rumour’ has not been unfounded) to have been seen with an AK 47 assault rifle scaring voters away from polling booths? Where in a show of inter-geographical support for the ruling party in Ondo, ‘Mike Tyson’, ‘Michael Jackson’, ‘Cecilia Ibru’ and a host of other personalities from the business and showbiz world, came out en masse (to borrow a hackneyed political phrase in Nigeria) to ‘vote’ for the PDP candidate? Were it not for the courage and the zeal to uphold the rule of law shown by a certain Justice Garba Nabaruma led election tribunal, it is a matter of fact that the PDP would have once again gone scot-free with this flagrant rape of the people’s Will. A golden moment for the judiciary in Nigeria it was. One of those moment, so common abroad so rare in Nigeria, when the Blind Lady fixes her unwavering sightless gaze on the Truth.
One must commend not only Dr. Mimiko for his dogged determination in his fight to reclaim his stolen mandate, but also the brave people of Ondo State who withstood the brunt of officially sanctioned intimidations in order to make their votes count as they overwhelmingly voted for a relatively young political party and her charismatic governorship candidate in a last ditch effort to free their state from the malodorous embrace of the PDP. Why did they do it? Why they saw a messiah in the person of Dr Mimiko, a messiah they so desperately craved. Why he represent something for them; something that gives them a reason to go through the motions of Life as they endure the gaping portholes that is their roads, the rat infested morgues that is their hospitals, the constant darkness that is their lives under the present PDP state government and that is Hope, Hope that surely Change is going to come, that destiny is only being delayed it cannot be changed. Such frail hopes these are but they hope nonetheless.
There is a messianic allure about this Medical Doctor-turned politician. This messianic quality more than anything drew the masses of Ondo State to his camp. Such is the aura of a messiah surrounding Mimiko that in most local government he went for his campaign rallies, the crowd was made up mostly of people who’d hired buses on their own pockets just to see and hear the man and for a chance to chant “Iroko joo! Gbasibe!!!” (his campaign catch phrase). A Nigerian version of the masses funded epoch making campaign of President Barack Obama.
As we wait, with bated breath, for the Appeal Court in Benin to arrive at a rational and just verdict for the people of Ondo state, one can only hope the PDP gets whatever come- uppance the judicial system can mete out to them. Like the case of Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State and Governor Adams Oshiomole of Edo State, the PDP must not go scot free with this daylight robbery of a peoples’ mandate. For the sake of justice, for the sake of truth, for the sake of one man’s relentless battle to gain back for his people what is rightfully theirs through constitutionally stipulated means, for the sake of the long suffering people of Ondo state, one hopes justice is done for Dr Olusegun Mimiko and the Labour Party. He may not be as recognizable as Adams Oshiomole in the consciousness of Nigerians, but they do share one thing in common; their mandate was stolen from them by the same feudal, oligarchic and power hungry cabal. One has won back through the power of the courts his stolen mandate, the other waits with fingers crossed for justice to be served. We wait with him. The PDP has stolen enough for the owner to notice!
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