Governor Olusegun Mimiko
By James Sowole
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the ruling Labour Party in Ondo State at the weekend accused each other of plans to impersonate each other through branded fez cap and T-shirt to forment trouble.
The ACN accusation was levelled by the Coordinating Director of the Independent Campaign Network for the party ahead of the forthcoming election, Mr Wale Akinterinwa, while interacting with journalists.
Similarly, the Director-General of the Mimiko Campaign Organisation, Mr Akin Adaramola, while speaking at a news briefing displayed one of the materials allegedly made by the ACN for the purpose of impersonating LP supporter with the inscription ‘Mimiko Special Corps; Anti-electoral Fraud.’
Alleging that 300,000 out of the 500,000 copies of the vests and fez caps that the party intended to use for the act had been printed, Adaramola said the ACN equally planned to start a programme on a radio station owned by a leader of the party to discredit the Mimiko’s administration.
The DG alleged that the ACN was allegedly making the plan outside the state through some of the leaders of the party.
“Their latest plot is to explore technical means of creating confusion during the forthcoming governorship election by perpetrating acts which they hoped to use against the Labour Party while prosecution their legal battle after losing the poll.
“They planned to take photographs and document of the incident for the purpose of presenting them as evidence at the Election Petition Tribunal,” he added.
Adaramola warned the people of the state to beware of the alleged plan of the opposition party which he said was desperate to take over the state at all cost.
According to Akinterinwa, the LP decided to hoodwink members of the unsuspecting members of the public with the propaganda that it was the ACN that wanted to foment trouble when leaders of the party heard that the ACN wanted to expose its plan.
Akinterinwa said without mincing words, the LP-led government was just making noise and accusing ACN of planning to cause violence.
Meanwhile, Governor Olusegun Mimiko at the weekend stated that the state remains the most progressive in the South-west region in view of the welfarist policies and programmes of the current administration.
Mimiko, who spoke in Idanre, headquarters of Idanre local government area of the state during his campaign tour of the local government, stated that in the last three and a half years, the rapid developments that his administration had put in place had made Ondo State to tower above its peers in the region.
He itemised some of these life-changing projects to include the innovative health care system for which accolades had been received from both the World Bank and World Health Organisation, urban development and human settlement for which he received the United Nations Habitat (UN-HABITAT) Award two weeks ago, in education, in agriculture amongst others.
“In our education sector, we are proud to say that no state in the South West compares to us, indeed, while students pay as much as two hundred and fifty thousand (N250, 000) and above in tertiary institutions in some of the South West states, students in Ondo State tertiary institutions pay less that N25, 000 yet, members of a particular political party say they are progressive and boast that they will capture us.
“In Nigeria today, our workers collect the highest Minimum Wage of N22, 000 while most of the workers in the South-west are still agitating for the N18,000 Minimum Wage yet they claim they are the progressives. Initially, they came to ask for the blueprint of our projects, we gave them, and now they copy them outright, yet they could not even imitate us well. And they said they want to capture us
as if we are rats and grass-cutters”, Mimiko said.
The governor said the government shall use the resources of Ondo State to serve the interest of its people, saying: “We will resist every attempt by those who want to divert resources of our dear state to service the interest of any godfather anywhere in Nigeria.”