Sep 14th, 2008
PDP Embarks on Campaigns of Calumny. Mimiko Disowns Advertorial
LABOUR Party governorship candidate in Ondo State Dr. Olusegun Mimiko weekend disowned an advertorial entitled: “Mimiko’s Plan for Ondo State ,” by the Ondo Youth Action Group (OYAG) on how he intends to govern the state.
Dr Mimiko warned those behind the campaigns of calumny against him in the media through paid advertorials to stop such unholy venture adding that the public could not be deceived.
The advert in which a supposedly secret memo purportedly written to the governor-elect by a nameless director of strategy and planning in which he catalogued details of how monies running into some billions of naira of the state’s fund under Mimiko’s administration could be used to take care of some people’s welfare through unwholesome means was ‘leaked’ to the public.
He pointed accusing fingers at the present administration in the state and urged them to stop wasting public funds “in their bid to explain away why the Dr Agagu lost the 14-month legal battle at the tribunal.”
But the publicity secretary of the PDP in the state, Chief Yemi Adedipe said that pointing accusing finger at the government in an advert placed by people well known in the state was uncharitable on the part of the opposition. Adedipe said that the opposition party in the state is like a sinking ship and was looking for a way to smear the government.
He however noted that the people of the state knew the stuff the labour party is made of and do not attached any importance to their unfounded allegations. But Mimiko’s media assistant Kolawole Olabisi said in Akure that the adverts was paid for with state funds.
According to Mimiko, “l would not have dignified the advertorial and several ones before it with a reply, but l decided to speak up in order to put the record straight by urging the governor to be bold enough to come out in the open to criticizing him rather than using subterfuge to attack his unblemished records.
“First of all, I want to say with all sense of modesty that in all the public offices that it has pleased God to put me, as two-time health commissioner, as secretary to state government (SSG) and a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I have been above board. Therefore, the advertorial is laughable; a figment of Agagu’s imagination and it shows the stuff of the people they are made of.”
While insisting the advertorial and many like it in the recent past showed how degenerate the minds of the authors are and how desperate they have become, Mimiko noted, “As that late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo once noted, the hawk labours in the vain belief that all other creatures feed on the chick!”
Source: Vangaurd
3 Responses to “PDP Embarks on Campaigns of Calumny. Mimiko Disowns Advertorial”
It is not surprising all the efforts by moribund Dr.Agagu to frustrate and destroy both the LP and the Governor ELECT Dr. OLUSEGUN MIMIKO. The tribunal verdict was and still a surprise to all the PDP members in Ondo State and they can never recover from the shock which has demoralized all of them. They have exhausted every power they have to hold on to power,what is now left with them is what the Yoruba people call ”kaka keku maje sese afi sawa danu” meaning if the mouse can’t eat the soya beans at least it will waste them. They know they have no chance in the appeal court and that it is a matter of time, they will leave alagbaka. No matter how clever thier shenanigan is, it cannot turn back the clock and they cannot change the minds of the people of Ondo State who want the change and 100% sure that Mimiko is the tool for a just, fair, equitable and lasting solution to the problems of the poor people of our State. We have seen Agagu and his team rise with what they called their mighty power during the election and the tribunal like Goliaths but both the LP and Mimiko’s superiority,popularity,bestiality,the truth and the power of God were unbeatable and so shall it be again in the appeal court, amen. They relied on their so called mighty power to rig before the election while we were busy doing house to house campaign and they lost. Both the PDP and Agagu are goners. Labour Party joo, Mimiko the preferred and Governor elect GARRY GO JARE.
To say I am surprised at this move by Agagu cum PDP in Ondo State, to engage in dirty politics and lies and slander would be untrue for even on this website we have witnessed Agagu Sponsored servants coming to blackmail, cast aspersions and then resort to intimidation and name calling. One Temi or Temisan got so carried away he not only tried to call me an Agagu snitch, then they went on to use false names belonging to people on this website to print nonsense on their website. When found out, they registered on yet another blog to threaten and cajole, and this Temisan pretending to be a friend of Dr Mimiko later identified himself as one of the Youth Leaders. So for this I am not surprised. But one thing stands out clear, Ondo State is presently governed by people who have no integrity, no scrupples, who would tell any lie to save their neck and who wants to hang on to power by their adopted politics of “do or die”. They have woefully failed so far, they will keep on failing and no matter the amount they are paid, they will fade out in ignominy.
Worse still, these outrightly shallow minded people, instead of showing to the whole world proof of their claim to the governorship seat in Ondo State (and of course they have no such proof for they were not voted in by the people of Ondo State), they now believe that Ondo State people would buy their errant nonsense being posted out in the name of Mimiko. Well, morning shows the day. We await the appeal ruling. My only dissatisfaction here is the length of time this appeal will take.
Can someone help me answer this question? Why, if Mimiko has been returned as the Governor and Agagu proved the impostor is Agagu allowed to continue? It should have been the other way round! The Constitution should have allowed for the removal of the deceitful pending when the appeal is heard.
The big problem I see here is allowing an ousted, disowned and discredited governor Agagu to continue in office, please read on:
LP, Ondo govt disagree on N36b extra budget
From Niyi Bello, Akure
THE recent passage of a N36 billion supplementary budget by Ondo State House of Assembly has drawn criticisms from the opposition Labour Party (LP) in the state which described it as “another way by the Olusegun Agagu government to drain our resources”.
But the state government described the criticism as “a most unreasonable ranting from a group of jobless mischief-makers who are bent on destroying the state in pursuit of an ambition of one man”.
The LP, in a statement by its Chairman, Dr. Olaiya Oni, yesterday said: “The presentation of the supplementary budget to the Assembly by Dr. Olusegun Agagu and subsequent approval by the House was to create a channel to siphon the state funds into private pockets”.
Oni, a popular technocrat in Ondo and a former Minister of Education, alleged that the presentation of the budget defied the logic of transparency and accountability and that it was definitely a ploy to enrich some individuals at the detriment of the state.
He alleged that the purpose of the exercise was to put the state in a dire financial crisis so as to create a huge problem for the waiting government of the LP standard-bearer, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who has been declared winner of last year’s polls by the Justice Garba Nabaruma election tribunal.
In the statement, Oni said it was a matter of regret that “despite the N82.3 billion which was approved for the 2008 budget last year, Agagu, by February this year, demanded and got N67 billion as supplementary budget for 2007″, adding that in 2007, the governor sought and got N11.5 billion as supplementary budget for 2006.
LP said: “Up till date, aside from paid advertorials and sponsored write-ups and documentaries in the media, there are no capital projects to show for all the billions of naira he claimed to have spent on his phantom projects only known to him.
“And now, Agagu, in this transition period when a competent court of law has declared his occupancy of the Government House illegal, has come up with this N36 billion supplementary budget when we still have four months to go in the year and when he has not fully expended the 2008 budget.
“The obvious reason he is doing this is to use this money to cover his monumental and massive withdrawal of government funds into his political and family machinery”.
Oni was particularly piqued by the contents of page 29 of the controversial supplementary budget on which he remarked that “Agagu claimed to have spent N4.2 billion on certain road projects, which to anybody in Ondo State had not been worked on in the past two years, instead of the N3.5 billion initially approved for them in the 2008 budget”.
He is now asking for another N8 billion to carry out further rehabilitation of these same roads, which were never rehabilitated in the first place. This is the height of profligacy and it is unacceptable.
“It is obvious that what Agagu is targeting is the sum of N31.3 billion being expected as windfall to the state from excess crude oil fund (N17.1 billion), mineral derivation fund (N2 billion), special power intervention fund (N8.5 billion), statutory allocation (N1 billion), value added tax (N1.1 billion), among others, so that by the time Mimiko is sworn in as the governor of Ondo State, his government would be incapacitated by financial constraints”.
The Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Eddy Olafeso, who spoke with The Guardian, however, said that “the allegation that the government was spending state money without corresponding development can only come from those who are bent on making mischief to discredit the people of this state”.
He said: “It is obvious to everybody resident in this state that this government has performed even beyond the expectation of the average citizen and our people are happy about it. So any attempt to wish all these giant strides away can only come from those that do not wish us well in Ondo State.
“On the issue of supplementary budget, it is a known fact all over the world that money must be appropriated before being spent and the fact is in line with our transparency and accountability posture. The fact that the government got legal backing for expenditure is what these lawless elements cannot comprehend. It shows the kind of politicians they are”.