Former Housing and Urban Development Minister and Governorship Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the last April Election, Dr Olusegun Mimiko has cautioned the Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Agagu to desist from casting aspersions on his person in the media.

Mimiko who spoke against the backdrop of series of interviews granted by the embattled Governor whose electoral victory at the April poll is already being challenged by most of the political parties in the State( LP inclusive) at the Election Petition Tribunal
sitting in Akure in which he (Agagu) alleged among others that Mimiko and those in the LP are disgruntled people who left the PDP because they did not like his style of governance, warned that Aggu’s comments were unbecoming of a man who professes to be seeking for peace in the State.

Mimiko who spoke though his Media Assistant, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, also noted with dismay the statements credited to Agagu in which he stated that he was seen on television during the election praising him (Agagu) as the best thing that God ever gave to
Nigeria. “May I ask Dr. Agagu to tell the whole world on which television station did I say that and on what occasion? He should be gracious enough to tell the whole world the truth rather than engaging in all sorts of fabrications. Dr. Agagu should leave me out
of his woes and allow the Election Tribunal to do adjudicate on the matter before it rather than playing to the gallery by making all sorts unfounded allegations.

Aside, Dr Mimiko took exception to the allegation that the LP was a platform of disgruntled people who left PDP to unseat the governor saying that Dr. Agagu was aware of the real reasons why he lost the election to the LP in the April election before he stole the people’s mandate when figures were concocted in his favour.

Mimiko attributed the popularity of the LP in the State within 3 months of its formation to becoming the biggest party, even bigger than the PDP and all the other parties in the State combined before the April election to the fact that the PDP failed woefully to provide the people with the dividends of democracy. According to him, those who had jumped “the sinking ship of PDP” to the LP knew his (Mimiko’s) antecedent as an achiever saying that their action was not borne out of any differences as Agagu was trying to make out in his numerous interviews.

His words: “For four long years, the people of Ondo State were in the throes of want in the midst of plenty. The Ondo state government under Dr. Olusegun Agagu, between 2003 and 2007 alone, got more revenue at its disposal than in any other time in our state’s history. In relative terms, the resources available to Dr Agagu’s administration were perhaps more than all the revenues the state had from 1976 when it was created to 2003 his government came to office. In July 2006 alone, Ondo State received from the Federation Account a total of Nine Billion Naira (N9bn)!

“Sadly enough, the State did not witness a corresponding level of development commensurate with over the N120 billion received by the Agagu’s government from the Federation Accounts in four years. Rather, there was an obvious lack of good governance starring us all in the face hence there was a wide cry for a change and the people called on me to leave my position as Minister to come home and help re-build the broken walls of Jerusalem.”

These, according to Mimiko, were some of the reasons why the people of the State were desirous of a change of government and hence the exodus from the PDP to the Labour Party in the State and the subsequent heavy trouncing of the PDP in the State before the mandate of the people were stolen in broad daylight.

While carpeting Dr Agagu’s for continuing to bash his image in the press all in his desperate bid to justify his so-called electoral victory in the April poll, Mimiko advised him to respect the verdict as given by the people of Ondo State on April 14 who voted
massively against him.

“Rather than embarking on this image-bashing, Dr. Agagu should allow the wish of the people to prevail. He knew that he stole the people’s mandate and they have asked us to take our mandate back though the law court and we have done that. Agagu should, in the meantime, allow the Tribunal to do its job and stop casting aspersions on my personality. The people of Ondo State and Nigerians know me as a man of peace, one whose every actions both in private and in public life have been guided by the utmost regard for due process and high restraints. I have decided not to join issues with Dr. Agagu but he should respect me for keeping silent in the face of series of provocative and inflammatory statements against my persons by him and his minions.”