…He will fly PDP’s flag on Nov 26
By Chinelo Obogo
Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State believes that Eyitayo Jegede of the Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is still the man to beat in the November 26 election in the state. He said that despite the air of uncertainty surrounding the candidature of Jegede, he would still overcome all the challenges on his way to victory. In this interview with some journalists, he spoke on various issues.
In the last three weeks, there appeared to be a kind of misunderstanding within the PDP family in Ondo State; people are confused; what is the situation? what is the way forward?
People are itching to hear from you.
It is important to thank my good people of Ondo State, I want you to be rest assured that I appreciate you. You have comported yourself in very commendable way. Your peaceful but rugged and persistent resistance in the last three and half weeks would go down in record as the new Ondo State way.
You are all aware of the bizarre development in the politics of Nigeria, in the body politic of this state in the last three weeks; again if you will recall, Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) of PDP was elected in an open free primary election monitored by INEC and all the security agencies but suddenly, we woke up on October 27, 2016 to find out that the name has been substituted by somebody who as at that time could not lay claim to being a member of the party, somebody whose primary election was conducted outside the geographical enclave of Ondo State specifically in Ibadan. Neither INEC, SSS nor any of the security agencies was there to witness what happened there. So, there is no question about the fact that what happened on October 27 was a contrived conspiracy of sorts because the decision of INEC cannot find comfort in justice, in principle, in law and in morality. Ordinarily, in many climes, there could have been violent uprising, but in this state, you people stood up to make it absolutely clear, that that will not stand but you managed to ensure that you have not truncated the peace that we have enjoyed in this state in the last eight years.
It has been a lot of investment all the way, being able to engender the level of peace that we have put in this state and I’m particularly appreciative of you, the people of this state that in spite of this very provocative conspiracy, you have not in anyway truncated the peace in the land. After this, I believe the proper thing to do was to seek redress through the normal constitutional channels. Redress has been sought by the candidate himself, Eyitayo Jegede, by PDP, the party and major stakeholders. We have no doubt in our minds that justice will be done, because like I said, this level of impunity will definitely not stand. I am talking as a leader of the party in the state, I want to tell you that we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that you get justice. Let me again appeal to you that while you demonstrate your resistance to this injustice, we must ensure that we keep the peace. It is the peace that God has enabled us to embrace in this state that has engendered the development that we have enjoyed in the last eight years. I beg of you that we must remain peaceful.
A couple of days away from the election, possibly for the umpteenth time, one will ask what is the way forward and what hope for your candidate, what hope for the people?
Let me repeat what I have said again, the injustice will not stand. Eyitayo Jegede will contest election on the platform of PDP. I’m talking as a leader of PDP in this state and also with what is on ground in terms of what Eyitayo is bringing on board. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that Eyitayo Jegede will be the next governor of the state.
And a couple of days back, you met with President Buhari and there are insinuations that you have gone there to parley with him, possibly to cross over to the other side of the divide.
You know that in politics, conspiracy theories abound, let me just bring us back to what happened on October 27, like I said. The substitution of Eyitayo by INEC was a joke from the blues. You live in this state, you saw the spontaneity in the reaction of the people. Like I said, we never saw it coming; the decision can find no comfort in law, in the guidelines of INEC itself. This is a situation where somebody without INEC and security went to Ibadan to conduct primaries, then brought some very controversial court order and declared the candidate and what this means is that somebody can go to Enugu or Onitsha; he doesn’t even have to be a citizen of Ondo State, bring an order to INEC and you substituted a duly elected person. It was something bizarre, something abnormal, something without precedence in politics and because of the provocative nature of that decision and because it was not based on any law or guideline, the next person to see is the president who is the Chief law officer, the Chief Executive, the Chief Security officer of the country.
There are certain things that have become like a recurring decimal in your administration and these things are issues that touch on the lives of the people. What are you doing to mobilise the people, to ensure that sustainability and continuity are really brought to the front burner in ensuring development and progress?
Let me first of all appreciate you for acknowledging the fact that our programmes are targeted at people, because in the cacophony of political sloganeering, people may actually not know that the import of all of these is about the people. Any policy that does not contribute and add direct value to the people is not worth it and you will look through all our programmes; is it urban renewal, health, education – everything is targeted at how to ensure that we add values to the lives of our people and I keep saying this especially those that need the help of government most are the people at the lower wrung of the ladder. The people who cannot afford decent transportation for children to school, you remember the spectacle a few years ago, where we had between four/five school children on Okada – afternoon and morning, those are the people that need help. Our free shuttle is targeted not only at the poor, of course the whole of the society, but specifically those that need government help are those disabled by the social arrangement in the society. The people who need government are people who will continue to bleed to death from pregnancy because they can’t afford decent hospital care. The people who need government are people who cannot afford tertiary education for their children, because they are asking them to bring N250,000, N350,000 – these are people who actually need government and I can’t tell you that the most important sustainability factor of any programme is to have the buy-in of the people; and if a programme is about the people, you can take the buy-in for granted. I can’t see any government coming now and say that as a matter of policy, I will stop free shuttle bus – the people will be up in arms against them; but it is possible that they don’t have the necessary commitment and competence that will allow them to continue to run shuttle bus and is one of the reasons you must vote Eyitayo Jegede, who has been with all of these from the beginning. Now, can you imagine somebody coming now and saying that he wants to build schools and build these squeeze-size cow sheds of those days that we call school. They would expect a 21st century infrastructure like we are building now and people are keyed into it and that is another factor of sustainability.
What are the reasons behind the passion with which you support Jegede?
Let me tell you one thing, whatever anybody says, in the last almost eight years, we have worked very hard to change the story of this state, from one provincial back hood stage to a stage that is coming to benchmark many programmes, not only for Nigeria but Africa. When development issues are being discussed in Nigeria today, Ondo State definitely has a place. We have done a lot to bring about peace in Ondo State, we have done a lot of gender development, we have done a lot to ensure that the people are proud to be Ondo State indigenes. When we started the Dome project, our vision was very clear; we said we wanted to make Ondo State the number one event destination in Nigeria. We are not there yet, but there is no question about the fact that we are near perfect, it will get to a stage that I said then, that there will be no event that is actually called an event, if that event has not taken place in our international event centre, and we are on the part to it. This vision that is unfolding before us is not completed yet. Let me give you an example, we looked at industrialisation for example, we did a very thorough forensic analysis for what became of the industries that existed in this state before.
Two things and the most important and critical is power. It got to a stage that the products could not be competitive because of power; look at Oluwa Glass for example, the furnace has to be ran on diesel, black oil, non-stop. It got to a stage that was no longer competitive. There is also the administrative part of it there; too much government in it and they messed it up’ but the most important, look at them all, is it Ifon Ceramics; the most common factor that supersedes all of those factories had been power. When we came on board about four years ago and we did a thorough analysis of all of this, we thought we wanted to do something about power, that was even before reforming the power sector and we signed many MoU’s with many private sector people, etc; even the power purchase agreement so complex, so complicated; when the Power reform started around 2011 or so, we just decided to take the bull by the horns and let us set up our full independent power. Let’s put it in an industrial park. Let us put it in Ore because of the strategic advantage of Ore; just a few hours from Lagos, which is the biggest market in Africa. Let’s put it in Ore because Ore is just sitting in the middle of the country between the East and West or even going to the North, you have to go through Ore; and we predicted that if we can put that there, industries will work on their own feet to Ore park; and we started. That power plant, the turbines have been installed and it is the first tri-fuel power plantin Africa. Turbine installed, everything is set, what we are agreeing now is make sure that we get gas into the place.