The making of a Governor: Profile of Dr Rahman Olusegun Abayomi Mimiko, Governor, Ondo State of Nigeria

Dr. Rahman Olusegun Mimiko

His Pedigree:

1.       Dr.  Rahman Olusegun Mimiko was born on 3 rd October, 1954, to Pa and Mrs. Atiku Bamidele Mimiko of Ondo, Ondo State. His great, great grandfather was the High Chief Adaja Gbegbaje of Ondo. His great grandfather, Chief Akinmeji, was the distinguished Ruwase of Ondo. His grandfather, Pa Famimikomi, was an accomplished man. His gallantry in those long years attracted great respect, some of which rubbed-off on his own son, the late Pa A. B. Mimiko, himself an accomplished manager of men and materials, a cocoa plantation farmer, an avid reader and monitor of global developments, an erudite social commentator and a compassionate leader of men. Dr. Mimiko’s mother, now 75, is of the eminent Ogunsulie family of Ondo Kingdom.

2.       Dr. Mimiko entered St. Joseph’s College, Ondo, in 1966, and left with the West African School Certificate in 1970. Between 1971 and 1972, he was a Higher School Certificate (HSC) student at the popular Gboluji Grammar School, Ile-Oluji, Ondo State. Dr. Mimiko entered the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, in 1972. In 1976, he bagged a B.Sc. Health Sciences Degree, and the MB; CH.B in 1980.  He is appropriately registered with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council as a Medical Practitioner.

3.       As a Medical Doctor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko worked in different establishments. Between 1980 and 1981, he was a House Officer with the Ondo State Health Management Board under which auspices he worked at the General (now State Specialist) Hospital, Ado-Ekiti (now in Ekiti State). He had a stint with the Nigerian Naval College (NNS Onura), Onne, Port Harcourt, between 1981 and 1982, from where he returned to join the services of the Ondo State Health Management Board as Medical Officer in the General (now State Specialist) Hospital, Ondo, in 1982.

4.       From late 1983 to 1984, Dr. Mimiko had his initial taste of private medical practice by working at different times as a Medical Officer at Apagun Clinic, Yaba, Lagos; and as Acting Medical Director, Alleluyah Hospital, Oshodi, Lagos. He returned to public service for another year between April 1984 and February 1985 (again with the Ondo State Health Management Board) before finally going into full private medical practice with the setting up of the MONA MEDI-CLINICS with headquarters at Ondo town.

His Political Engagement:

5.       A proverb says the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That exactly applies to the journey of the fifth elected Governor of Ondo State, Dr Rahman Olusegun Abayomi Mimiko whose political record of activities dates back to his undergraduate days as a medical student at the then University of Ile, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, in Osun State, in the late 1970s and early 1980. As a student unionist, he graduated to find political expression and identity in the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, when he registered as a member of the Party soon after his return from the National Youth Service scheme. As a budding politician, Dr. Mimiko served as the Publicity Secretary of the Ondo Local Government chapter of the UPN in 1983.

6.       The internal crises which be-devilled the UPN and the politics of the era dragged on to the 1983 general elections with the popular discontentment on the rigging of the 1983 gubernatorial polls which sought to dethrone one Governor that presented every feature of a budding sage, Chief Adekunle Ajasin. Democracy seemed doomed by the desperation of politicians of those days who were unfortunately insensitive to the authoritarian proclivity of some of Nigeria’s military elites, which kept the soldiers dominating the governance of the federation until recently.

7.       As the Second Republic was aborted late 1980 by the combination of civilian excesses and military impatience for gradual growth of democratic values, a convoluted maze of transition to civil rule programmes was unveiled by the soldiers of that period who had to limit participatory democracy by issuing military fiat to confront or solve civil problems.

8.       The political violence of 1983 had left many lives lost and uncountable houses burnt to ashes. One of the severely affected areas was Ondo Kingdom. As the smokes reduced, the losses were getting more dumbfounding and obviously unacceptable. Several people became concerned about the effect of such destructive tendencies on political growth in the Kingdom as with several other towns across the State that were also affected by the violence. Naturally, most parents and guardians became prone to discouraging their children and wards from active political participation. All about politics were described as filthy, which supposedly should not be touched with even a long pole.

9.       The foregoing notion of politics was to change much later when Dr. Mimiko’s in-born passion for social transformation inhered with the concern of a trio of young academics ensconced in two of the nation’s universities who came up with the idea about the need to continually brainstorm on the future of Ondo Kingdom in the emerging politics of Nigeria as a critical first step in raising consciousness on the need to get into and deploy government responsibly and responsively in the service of the people. So, late in 1987, these ideas crystallized around Dr Mimiko, then, proprietor ofMona Clinic. The young idealists gathered under his leadership and devoted time, energy and resources to the birth and growth of what later became the ONDO STUDY GROUP (OSG).

10.   The OSG defined its objectives and goals in the short and long terms. Above all, the socio-cultural and political group sought answer to basic questions relating to the place of the common man in the governance system abroad in the federation at the time. Its intellectual discussions were mostly held within the serene atmosphere of Mona Clinic. The OSGwould research into specific issues and then publish its findings, which were all targeted at fostering attitudinal change among the elites, in a newsletter, Dawn of Awareness.

11.   Upon a thorough review of its political mobilization efforts, the OSG General Assembly in 1988 endorsed the full participation of its members in politics. To lead the pack was Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who was supported to run for office as Chairman of the former Ondo Local Government (now Ondo East and West LGAs) in 1990 under the aegis of the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP). Unfortunately, that early effort was aborted, but now a full-fledged politician, Dr. Mimiko served as the ex-officio member of the SDP Executive Council in Ondo Local Government Area. He also served as a member of the Party’s Disciplinary Committee.

12.   The Mimiko group soon found rewarding relevance in the campaign group of Evangelist Bamidele Olumilua who was bidding for the governorship seat of Ondo State under the SDP. Before long, Evangelist Olumilua saw the talents in the energetic Dr. Mimiko and against all resistance by some local oppositional political forces appointed him as the Honourable Health Commissioner in 1992. By the time he was leaving office in late 1993 as a result of the military coup d’etat that terminated that Republic, Dr. Mimiko had left his mark as a performer. In that short period, he facilitated the setting up of the Pharmacy Shop System under which 24-hour pharmacy services were being provided in the main hospitals around the State. He also conceived and brought into reality the idea of what came to be known as Accident and Emergency Centres in some of the State Hospitals in the then Ondo State (now Ondo and Ekiti States). These were centres furnished with state of the art equipment to attend to accident and other emergency cases confronting government hospitals everywhere around the State. Obviously, this first tour of duty as a public official was a great opportunity for Dr. Mimiko to demonstrate the stuff of which he is made. It set the tone for a distinguished career in politics the continuation of which is his swearing-in today as the fifth elected Governor of the Sunshine State. 

13.   Again, in recognition of his extensive contribution to the victory of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the 1999 governorship election in Ondo State, Dr. Mimiko was appointed the Honourable Commissioner for Health in the State, making the second time he would hold the office. Before he resigned his position in the State Executive Council on November 7, 2002, Dr. Mimiko had greatly enhanced the quality of health care delivery in the State. He brought real innovations into the health sector. His Ministry completed and equipped the Millennium Eye Centre, Akure, which still ranks among the best in Nigeria, within the first 100 days of the civilian administration. The Festivals of Surgery, under which auspices hundreds of free surgical operations were carried out to restore the sight of blind and partially blind patients and to relief those with hernia, were widely received across the State, and copied in many others. Needless to state that these brought succour and joy to the hearts of thousands of indigenes of Ondo State. Also through the instrumentally of his Health Rangers Scheme, Dr. Mimiko facilitated the delivery of health services to the innermost parts of Ondo State, providing thousands of rural dwellers with their real first contact with government. Overall, the undeniable truth, attested to by citizens of Ondo State, is that the State Ministry of Health under Dr. Mimiko definitely added value to the AD government in the State.

14.   On November 7, 2002, Dr. Mimiko resigned his appointment as State Commissioner for Health, ‘for strictly personal reasons’. In the conviction that he would be in a better position to facilitate more quality governance in Ondo State, and in response to calls across the State that he should join the gubernatorial race, Dr. Mimiko formally announced his intention to contest the governorship election on the platform of the AD on Tuesday, November 19, 2002, at a crowded Press Conference in Akure, the Ondo State capital. He gave vent to his conviction that for Ondo State, there certainly were BRIGHTER DAYS AHEAD!His Campaign Organization was christened, Brighter Days Network.

15.   Dr Mimiko had to leave the AD when the constitutionally prescribed primary election for picking the gubernatorial candidate was not allowed to hold. It had become obvious that the basis for democratic engagement was no longer in the Party. He then adopted the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) of those early years as a preferred platform for the continuing struggle for enthroning good governance in Ondo State. After the victory of the Party in the April 2003 polls, Dr Mimiko was appointed Secretary to the State Government (SSG), a position he occupied till July 2005, when he was appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo as Minister of the Federal Republic in charge of Housing and Urban Development.It was from this office that Dr. Mimiko resigned on December 8, 2006, to enable him offer himself once again for higher service to Ondo State as Governorship candidate in the April 2007 election under the auspices of the Labour Party formally presented to the people of the State at City Hall, Akure, on December 14, 2006.

16.   Before he left office as Minister, Dr. Mimiko coordinated the Obasanjo Administration’s Reform Programme in the Housing and Urban Development sector. But by far the most outstanding of his accomplishments in the housing sector, for which he remains very proud, is the production of the National Building Code which was formally launched by the Federal Government late 2006.

Extra-curricular:                                                                                                                                      

17.   Dr. Olusegun Mimiko has authored many research papers and published articles focusing on issues as wide-ranging as Medicine, International Relations and national socio-political developmental strategies. A December 1981 edition of the New Nigerian published his ‘Troops Withdrawal: Reagan’s Destabilization Ploy’. He co-authored ‘Wind of Change in Eastern Europe: Lessons for Africa and the Third World’, in the Daily Sketch of April 10, 1990, where he predicted the subsequent break-up of the then Soviet Union.

18.   At his leisure, Dr. Mimiko engages in writing and reading. Way back in 1971, the young Olusegun had won the John F. Kennedy Essay (School Level) Award, underscoring his creative capabilities. He is also a farmer (Iroko Farms) and an environmentalist with an abiding love for flowers and plantations. Appointed as Justice of Peace (JP) in 1993, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, is also a lover of exquisite art works.

19.   Over the years, Dr. Mimiko has won several awards in recognition of his excellent performance in public office and communal engagement. Significantly, less than six months after he left office as Health Commissioner in 1993, the Ondo State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), his professional colleagues, conferred on Dr. Mimiko an Award of Meritorious Service. He is a Patron to several youth and professional organizations across the country all of which look up to the ‘IROKO’ of Ondo State politics as a role model.

Family man:

20.   A widely-traveled man, Dr. Mimiko speaks Yoruba, English, and some smattering of French through the efforts of his wife Olukemi, a French Language graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University. Together, God has blessed their marriage with Bibitayo, Bayonle, Kikiayo and Pipelayomi.

Mission Statement

“To mobilize the people of Ondo State to harness all our God-given resources, create and use wealth for the ends of individual happiness, collective fulfillment and peaceful cohabitation in an environment of transparent and honest leadership”.