http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=123381:ondo-mimikos-explanation-and-a-bewildered-audience-&catid=104:sunday-magazine&Itemid=567
"The recent unedifying aftermath of the seemingly ordinary election of the chairman of the NGF is only indicative of the malaise afflicting the Nigerian system....No genuine representative of the people anywhere in the world will exhibit the type of behaviour seen of our so-called leaders! The fault lies nowhere else but with the dysfunctional unitary system that has been imposed on a country of multiple nations and in which the country Nigeria is nobody's property."--Bayo Ademodi
Ondo: Mimiko's Explanation And A Bewildered Audience
AS the people awaited the arrival of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko at the Babafunke Ajasin Auditorium Akure, venue of last week's May Day lecture, attention shifted to the video footage of the NGF election of May 24 and many people were seen showing the clip to others through various hand-held devices. It generated debate among the crowd about the inability of leaders to hold a rancor-free election.
The informal discussants were unanimous in blaming the country's leadership, as represented by the governors, for lacking the unity of purpose and commitment to promote matters that affected them, thereby exposing their weaknesses when it comes to handling serious matters of national importance. Many were more interested in ascertaining the role played by Mimiko in the contest, which Mimiko himself said almost led to fisticuffs among "their excellencies."
During the lecture, titled "Democracy, Security and Development: The Challenges of Ondo State as a Catalyst Agent," which was delivered by Professor Bola Akinterinwa, Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), references were made to the NGF election when the lecturer said something about leaders not being able to put their houses in order. The expectant crowd appeared to be waiting for Mimiko, who sat at the high table, to say his own side.
When after the lecture one participant Mrs. Remi Ibitola asked about the possibility to organise a credible general election, when a group of only 36 state governors could not organise a successful exercise, the hall erupted in an applause.
In his reaction, Mimiko heaped the blame of the exercise on Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and his group, whom he said adopted arm-twisting tactics to perpetuate himself in office asking.
He said; "Why did Amaechi, as an outgoing chairman refused to step down and had to preside over an election where he was a contestant? Somebody asked me why as a governor, I didn't step down when my second term election was holding and I said, if I was INEC, I probably wouldn't go through any election. I would simply have written the result for myself.
"It is never done. You cannot be a judge in your own case. But Amaechi insisted and of course, the venue was his house even though we protested vehemently. They brought out ballot papers and boxes whose origins we don't know. We don't know whether the ballot papers were marked and of course, they were not serialized.
"We said no. Let us have an open election and let everybody signify his preference by raising his hand. We believe if you believe in something and you have signified your intention publicly, you, as an adult with conscience, should be able to own up to it publicly too. But they said no, it must be by secret balloting.
"At a point they said I should come and play some role in the exercise, but I said I was not going to have anything to do with it. It was a pre-planned thing and they had their answers already even before the exercise.
"Now they are showing a video of the exercise. The whole thing lasted about three hours and what they are showing is less than 10 minutes. Ask them to show the whole event and see what transpired before the so-called election.
"The second day, 18 governors came out to say that the results of the so-called election could not have been a reflection of their votes. That has introduced doubts in the integrity of the election and some Nigerians don't seem to understand the underlying factors in the controversy."
Turning his attention to the youths, many of who were brandishing devises showing footages of the controversial exercise, Mimiko said, "the greatest undoing the youths of today can cause to themselves is to fail to avail themselves the use of modern communication technology, which has made information available at your finger-tips.
"You don't have to wait long before a correct version of information is got. So all these people who are trying to deceive Nigerians with half-truths about the NGF election are only whipping up the sentiments that they are the underdogs.
"Nigerians should be able to investigate and get the truth out of this matter, instead of being sentimental about somebody who falsely claimed that he is being oppressed. The truth is that Jonah Jang is the chairman of the NGF."
Although many of the praise-singers present in the hall applauded every sentence of the governor, the countenance on the faces of the quality crowd, including traditional rulers, captains of industries, senior politicians and top government functionaries, showed that the explanation could not hold any water.
Many who spoke to The Guardian wondered how Mimiko, who is a crusader of one-man-one-vote, which he projected before the last gubernatorial election in the state, which he won and who had always expressed his belief in the sanctity of the ballot paper, would support any position that is contrary to his belief.
They said it is "un-Mimiko" to have insisted on rejecting the result of an election in which he participated and a clear winner had emerged?"
Some of the people expressed disappointment and wondered why Mimiko should offer himself in a dispute involving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of which he is not a member, and in the alleged tussle between two brothers-in-law of the South-South geo-political zone, referring to President Goodluck Jonathan, whose wife, Patience, is an indigene of Amaechi's Rivers State.
A particularly irked politician from Mimiko's Ondo town said he found it difficult defending the role of the governor in the matter as, "his action in rejecting the result of the chairmanship poll and relying on a pre-election document could not be defended by any democrat who believes in the ballot as an agent of change in a democracy.
"The governor just told us that Amaechi did not step down but he didn't tell us why they voted at the end of whatever fracas he said the footage of the video didn't show us. In any case, the most important part of the event is what was recorded and shown to the public. If those against Amaechi had walked out of the venue without participating in the election, it would have been a different matter."
At the other end of Akure, where the state branch of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) was holding its general meeting at the same time that the Democracy Day lecture was holding, it was a sweeping condemnation of the governors who rejected the emergence of Amaechi.
A communiqué released at the end of the parley and signed by its coordinator, Dr. Bayonile Ademodi stated; "The recent unedifying aftermath of the seemingly ordinary election of the chairman of the NGF is only indicative of the malaise afflicting the Nigerian system.
"No genuine representative of the people anywhere in the world will exhibit the type of behaviour seen of our so-called leaders! The fault lies nowhere else but with the dysfunctional unitary system that has been imposed on a country of multiple nations and in which the country Nigeria is nobody's property."
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and its candidate in the last governorship election, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, condemned Mimiko's role.
Akeredolu said; "what we are seeing at the national level is what we have been experiencing in our state for years now. All these pretenders to the tenets of democracy would soon be exposed for what they are and our people will be free from their pretence that is causing us not only our freedom, but our well-being, which is being frittered away on daily basis."
Perhaps the most pertinent question being asked by many of the respondents to Mimiko's involvement in the NGF's chairmanship election imbroglio is why the Ondo governor, whose public profile depicts a polished and urbane personality, who is always on the side of the majority as a respected democrat, should join the group of those who detest the outcome of an electoral exercise, having himself being a victim of anti-democratic forces before.
It was however gathered that while Mimiko's democratic credentials could not be faulted and his cultured personality could not be questioned, his experience as a victim of malevolent deployment of presidential powers may be responsible for his action in aligning with the Presidency in the alleged fight against Amaechi, while it also points at the possible course he might follow in his political journey in the near future.
Prior to the 2007 governorship elections in Ondo State, Mimiko had a wide grassroots network that beckoned on him to leave Abuja as the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, to come home and contest the poll. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo persuaded him to stay on in Abuja and allow incumbent governor Olusegun Agagu to do a second term.
Mimiko, a consummate politician may have been swayed to President Jonathan's side because it is safer to be in the good books of Abuja.
And with the major opposition, the ACN breathing down his neck and threatening his seat and political future, pitching his tent with the Presidency, which had to abandon its own party at the state level for Mimiko's re-election, is seen by many as a survival strategy in a hostile environment.
Funmi Tofowomo Okelola
-The Art of Living and Impermanence
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