Dr. Olusegun Mimiko

• Ondo Gov after his life, says Labour Party
• You are bloody liars, reply Agagu’s men

Drenched in sweat under the sweltering sun, Dr Rahman Mimiko cast a furtive look at the sea of heads all detouring to his campaign visit. Again, he gazed at the cluster of heads around his Jeep, where a man in his 30s, suspected to be a hired killer, had just been apprehended by eagle-eyed security agents. The incident occurred Tuesday last week, in Ogbagi-Akoko, Ondo State.

Perhaps Mimiko, Ondo’s governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), was at the fleeting moment engrossed in deep thoughts. For a man who two weeks earlier had managed to escape from suspected man-hounds, trailing his convoy of vehicles, it was time for instrospection.

For the second time, the Ondo LP said it was compelled to raise alarm as some assassin squad had been raised to maul down its men, especially its governorship flagbearer.

The Ogbagi-Akoko incident, the party said, was one evil effort too many.

According to Kolawole Olabisi, media assistant to the governorship hopeful, a certain man who later identified himself as Tope Ajayi was caught strutting to open the rear door of Mimiko’s Jeep, thinking the principal had been ushered in.

He was however mistaken as Mimiko, former Minister of Housing, was yet to enter the vehicle. Mimiko was still mingling in the crowd, exchanging pleasantries with his supporters. “ In a jiffy, security men around seized him (the suspect) and conducted thorough search on him,” Olabisi said. According to Olabisi, a short gun, a sharp knife and other dangerous weapons were found on him. The suspect, it was learnt, also took with him, a reporter’s tape-recorder, notebook and a pen, to give the impression that he was a journalist.

Two weeks earlier, Mimiko had reportedly escaped death as gunmen opened fire on his convoy at Oyooyo, a settlement in Owo, Ondo State.

Not only Mimiko is harried for his life. Some of his young supporters were said to have suffered various attacks lately. The latest of such, it was gathered, was the attempt on the life of Ade Basket, a socialite and staunch backer of Mimiko. Basket’s traducers who attacked him in his Iro, Akure home were however resisted by neighbours. One of the attackers, who was apprehended was afterwards taken to the palace of the Akure monarch, the Deji, where he made useful statements.

Sources at the palace however said the suspect was sent by the leader of a rival party in the state.

Worried by the gale of attacks on the LP members, the party’s publicity director, Mr Remi Olatubora, said they had uncovered a grand design aimed at eliminating Mimiko and his supporters, before the April 14 governornorship elections.

Olatubora therefore called for increased police protection.

But the coordinator of Agagu 2007 Campaigns, Mr Ola Oguntimehin, described the whole scenario as mischief.

To him, charges of violent acts were trumped up by the LP in “order win undeserved public sympathy”

Meanwhile, a cleric, Pastor Emmanuel Bamiduro has cautioned politicians in Ondo State to refrain from acts capable of rekindling the political conflagration witnessed in the state during the 1983 general elections.

Bamiduro, General Overseer of Thy Word is Key Ministries, Lagos and indigene of the state, noted that the scars of assassination, arson and wanton destruction of that era were yet to heal.

“ If only they can imagine the pains and agony still being suffered by families whose loved ones were either burnt to death or beheaded, then, all parties will sheathe their swords”, he counselled.

Source: http://odili.net/news/source/2007/apr/8/804.html