Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko yesterday described the appointment of Professor Wale Adebanwi as a Rhodes Professor in Race Relations in the School of Inter Disciplinary Area Studies at the University of Oxford, as signifying hope and prospect for Nigeria’s education.
Mimiko in a congratulatory message by his Chief Press Secretary Eni Akinsola said the trajectory of Adebanwi’s academic career “shows that hard work, dedication and resilience have always brought, and will always bring, out the best in the people and the country as exemplified by the exploits of Adebanwi.
“Professor Adebanwi is a product of Nigeria’s education, warts and all. “Through hard work, a never say die spirit and unwavering scholarship, he has distinguished himself sufficiently to be singled out for a professorial chair in Oxford University.
“His appointment signifies hope in, and prospect for, Nigeria and her education. It is also an inspiration to younger ones who may wish to pursue careers in the academics,” Mimiko said.
The Ondo Governor said the people of Ondo State identifies with him on his appointment and wish him success in his new position.
“The trajectory of his academic career shows that hard work, dedication and resilience have always brought, and will always bring, out the best in the people and the country as exemplified by the exploits of Adebanwi.
“We are happy on account of his success and congratulate the distinguished professor on his achievements. Though he is now a global citizen, we salute our own son, Wale Adebanwi,” Mimiko concluded.
Tag: Mimiko
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Mimiko hails Adebanwi’s appointment as hope for Nigeria
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Mimiko’s, Akeredolu’s transition committees meet
The transition committees of Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko and Governor-elect Rotimi Akeredolu, at the weekend, met to ensure a seamless transition.
This is the first time in the state’s history that outgoing and incoming governments have set up transition committees.
The Chairman of Mimiko’s committee, Jide Adejuyigbe, who is the Commissioner for Education, said: “The Mimiko administration set up a transition committee headed by me and the other side is headed by Jamiu Ekungba.
“What we have done today is to meet and start the process towards a successful, seamless, unique and great inauguration.
“We are making history because this is the first civilian-to-civilian transition that will be seamless and we are proud to be part of this history making event.
“We are breaking the jinx of hostile transitions and we need to do this for history and to demonstrate to the world that in Ondo State we are mature politically and we are ready to sustain democracy.
“Our goal is to make sure we have a good and great event on that day.
“This committee is to essentially provide the venue, comfort for the guests.”
He explained that the committee will be working with other committees to ensure the success of the smooth transition.
Ekungba said the two committees met for the same objective.
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Adesanya: Mimiko wants to create problem for Akeredolu
The Publicity Secretary of the Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC), Abayomi Adesanya, has alleged that Governor Olusegun Mimiko may create problems for his successor, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), by awarding questionable road contracts across the 18 local governments.
He urged the governor to halt the plan to award the contracts, saying that his contributions to the state should now be limited to the transition process.
Adesanya said in a statement that N450m has been earmarked for the emergency projects, which may increase the burden of the new governor after assuming the reins.
He said if the contract was awarded under the guise of grading roads, it may pale into the looting of the treasury.
Adesanya stressed: “We have learnt that the governor has approved N25 m for each local government chairman for the grading of roads in their domains. We are of the view that the local government administrators will only have access to N2 m each per local government while someone will get kickback of N23 m from each local government.
“The money is scheduled to be disbursed next week from the state treasury. The APC wishes to alert the general public to the desperate efforts of the out-going government to loot the treasury. We also wish to caution civil servants to desist from conniving with officials of the out-going government to steal the resources of the state.
“All the detailed activities and documentation of the out-going government are at our disposal. We have been closely monitoring the actions and activities of Governor Olusegun Mimiko since November 2016, especially the last minute contracts and the disbursement of funds.” -
Mimiko: I got 12.5 per cent from Paris Club fund
Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko yesterday said his administration got 12.5 per cent instead of 25 per cent from the recently released Paris Club fund.
The governor, who wondered why his state was given such fund, said other states got their full percentage of the money.
Mimiko, whose eight year tenure will end on February 24, spoke at the first day of work prayer meeting in Akure, the state capital.
The governor blamed the half payment of the Paris Club fund on why he could not clear his debt.
But he vowed to get the balance and use it for workers’ salaries and other programmes of government.
Mimiko said he and his predecessors have laid solid foundation for the incoming administration, including necessary ground work for the smooth take-off of bitumen exploitation.
He attributed the success of his administration to support from workers.
Mimiko, who lauded President Buhari on his achievements in the Northeast, condemned the unabated Southern Kaduna killings.
He warned that innocent shedding of blood portends danger for the nation’s economic prosperity.
“We cannot be praying for economic progress if we continue to shed the blood of innocent people.”
He said his administration’s greatest achievement is peace, which he resisted the temptation to truncate during last November election.
Present at the meeting were the Deputy Governor Abdulazeez Oluboyo, his wife, Fatimat, Secretary to the State Government Aderotimi Adelola, members of the state executive councils and workers. -
I got only 12.5% from Paris Club fund – Mimiko
The outgoing governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, on Tuesday said his administration got only 12.5 percent instead of 25 percent from the recently released Paris Club fund.
The governor, who wondered why his state got only 12.5 per cent, said other states got their full money.
Mimiko, whose eight year tenure ends on February 24, spoke at the first day of work prayer meeting held in Akure, the state capital.
Workers, who were being owed seven months salaries, forcefully dragged the then Accountant-General of the state, Mr. Felix Ajibokun, to banks before they were paid a month salary to celebrate the Christmas.
Mimiko blamed the half payment of the Paris Club fund for his administration’s inability to settle its debt.
He vowed to get the balance of the money and judiciously deploy that to pay workers’ salaries and other programmes of government.
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‘Mimiko, pay workers’ salaries’
A prominent member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, Chief Willy Akinlude, has taken a swipe at the Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko over his inability to pay salaries of members of staff of the state civil service. Chief Akinlude urged the governor to clear the backlog of salaries owed workers before he lives office, because, he said, labourers deserve their wages.
Chief Akinlude, who stated this at a function in Mushin, Lagos said his party failed in the just-concluded gubernatorial election due to abandonment of the late Agagu’s legacies and under-achievement of Mimiko’s administration.
Noted for his outspokenness, the two-time Chairman of Mushin Local Government Area, Chief Akinlude scored the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration low, even as he doubted the the ability of the Ondo State governor-elect to perform under the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Akindolu added that the APC government has failed to tackle the current economic recession.
He said he could not see new Ondo State under Akeredolu. As an Ondo State indigene, he urged Akeredolu to revive all the projects abandoned by Mimiko’s administration.
On the crisis in PDP, he, however, stressed that the major actors, Sheriff and Markafi are both strong members, saying the later will not abandon the PDP. Peace, he said, will return to the party as soon as a new party is formed.
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Mimiko: MARE festival must continue
Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko has advised the incoming Rotimi Akeredolu-led administration to continue the annual MARE festival.
The event, which began in 2009, holds at Idanre Hill in Idanre Local Government Area.
Commissioner for Culture, Tourism and Special Duties Femi Adekanmbi at a briefing in Akure, the state capital, said MARE had been adding to the state’s revenue.
The commissioner said the festival would start with a lecture titled: “The Economic Importance of Festival to the Development of a State” by Dr. Amos Akingba, the Chairman, Governing Council, State University of Science and Technology (OSUSTECH), Okitipupa at the palace of Owa of Idanre.
Other events are mountain climbing sports, marathon, beauty pageant, musical concerts and float carnival procession tomorrow. -
Mimiko, Tinubu and conscience
The amazing thing about the outgoing Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State is his sneaky ways and his cult-like hold on those now popularly described as “political slaves” assembled in his “information ministry” required to churn out juvenile lies in manner that not only defies common-sense but also assaults their human dignity as a person.
Having got his fingers burnt in the November 26 polls in Ondo State, Governor Mimiko or “Iroko to gbabode” (bewitched Iroko) appears resolved to spend his last days in office deploying these “bare-foot slaves” according to Mr. Anthony Orimolade, to rationalize his Judas roles in the recent past. No wonder the few wise ones among them prefer to answer fake names.
I say this based on my extrapolation from the latest example of two obviously commissioned “rejoinders” to an article by The Nation columnist, Mr. Louis Odion on December 2 with the title “Mimiko: Profile in treachery”.
As compulsive reader of fine columnists paraded by The Nation, I had read Odion’s original take on the Ondo polls and dare say that it is consistent with the objectivity and courage Odion has been known for, for upward of 16 years of column-writing.
But rather than answer the charges of perfidy, treachery and infamy mentioned in the column, Mimiko and his media “running-dogs” have resorted to more lies and personal attacks.
So incompetent, this bunch of intellectual “Agbero” (touts) made further fool of themselves by peddling fabrications and idiotic lies as gospel, against facts that are clearly well known about the columnist. Who, for instance, does not know that Odion voluntarily resigned his appointment as information commissioner under the action governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole after four years of unblemished service and goes down in history as the only commissioner in Oshiomhole’s entire eight glorious years to be formally honoured with a state banquet before exit? You may be entitled to your opinion, but certainly not your own facts.
I thought the posers by the columnist were clear enough: Did Mimiko betray the workers by selling Labour Party to PDP? Of course, the answer is yes. Did “Iroko to gbabode” betray Dr. Segun Agagu who made him SSG or not? The answer is yes. Did he betray Asiwaju Bola and Jimoh Ibrahim who had offered him moral and financial support? The answer is yes. Did he in 2012 cut off the access road to Adaba FM station which ironically provided him a platform while fighting PDP in 2007/2008? The answer is yes!
Today, Governor Ayodele Fayose has demonstrated good faith by standing by Mimiko in his hour of trauma and depression. The same Fayose who Mimiko, a doctor not known to have administered an injection in the last two decades other than playing Judas politics, used to refer to as “school drop-out”. What a traitor!
First to bare his crooked fangs was one “Imefv Efuda” who claimed to be writing from “Abuja”. Another storm-trooper joined the orchestrated attack on the columnist on Sunday (December 18) in Thisday with another hatchet job entitled “Mimiko: Reading Louis Odion’s diatribe” under the pen-name “Tunde Olosunde”. From their tones, one does not need to be clairvoyant to know that they are the handiwork of the “bare-foot slaves” operating from the smoke-filled propaganda (sorry, information) ministry in Akure.
Well, I believe Odion, a multiple award-winning writer who became an editor at age 26 in the famous Concord newspaper in 1999, is competent enough to defend himself against the slew of slander and libel by this band of never-do-well and “e-rats” and their discredited paymaster.
The reason why I say Mimiko is irredeemable is another bare-faced lie by his publicists in their “rejoinders” on the National Leader of APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The columnist had listed Tinubu among those who helped Mimiko while he was struggling to reclaim his mandate between 2007 and 2008. As a keen watcher of Ondo politics, I have my own testimony. I recall that Mimiko was often holding press conferences in Lagos during the “struggle days” with the assistance of some Tinubu boys and was a regular face at Asiwaju Tinubu’s Bourdillon home.
In fact, I recall running into him twice or thrice at Tinubu’s residence looking famished and desperate in his faded Batik shirt, chino trousers and sandals with worn soles, with a colonial-style reading glasses tied round his neck with a rope. He would eat lunch and dinner there before leaving for where to sleep for the night, only to come back the following day. Like snake, he cleverly hid in the grass before he struck.
It is also public knowledge that Asiwaju not only provided him material resources but also moral support. How treacherous of Mimiko today to now try and downplay the help he received from Asiwaju. To now insinuate like “Olosunle” did that Mimiko did not ask Asiwaju to go extra mile in raising a crack legal team for his case is the most satanic thing to say.
Also, how Godly is it to suddenly turn around and label your old benefactor a “godfather” in 2012 when it was yet pleasurable and convenient for you to eat from his table in 2007/2008? If you are incapable of gratitude to man that is visible and alive for help, how are we to believe you sincerely believe and appreciate God that has never been seen?
Pray, if Mimiko now claims Tinubu played no role in the retrieval of his mandate in 2008, can he also swear that he was never at Tinubu’s Lagos residence at all and received no kobo and did not eat any rice or “amala”? We know he is a fake Christian and so will not ask him to swear by Bible. Like someone already suggested, I also dare him to swear by the “Otumokpor” (local deity) in his native Ondo. I know Mimiko will be scared because that one answers “by fire, by thunder” instantly.
When someone harbours this kind of shamelessly deceitful mind-set, one is at a loss whether it is the same Mimiko pictured recently in many national dailies bowing piously before the Daddy G.O of Redeemed Church, Pastor E. Adeboye, during the December Holy Ghost week at the Redeemed Camp in Ogun State. Lord have mercy!
How convenient to demonize Asiwaju today. But without Tinubu’s extra-ordinary effort to help you Mimiko fight that injustice, would you have been governor in 2008?
Well, there is God o!
Given his treacherous pedigree, I can bet with my last kobo that Mimiko will soon decamp to APC, forget that he was allegedly responsible for the media brouhaha over Buhari’s school certificate in 2014. It is a question of time.
Ogunwale writes from Owo, Ondo State.
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APC accuses Mimiko of secret recruitment of workers, sale of public properties
ONDO State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC),yesterday raised the alarm over alleged secret recruitment of workers by the state government and illegal sale of public property to its cronies.
The said letters of appointment issued, according to the party are being back dated by the state government.
In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Omo’ba Abayomi Adesanya in Akure, the state capital, APC said, “we have been adequately informed of the unpatriotic dealings of the outgoing government, by secretly employing over 10,000 people into all the ministries, parastatals and agencies of the state government.
“One of these organisations is Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko(AAUA), just in a bid to create problems and complexity for the incoming administration of the APC, when its (PDP) tenancy in Alagbaka Government House, ends in February 23, 2017.
“The Ondo state government has been recruiting massively into the health local governments and education ministries, among others. Properties of the state oil palm plantations at Okitipupa, Irele, Araromi-Obu are been sold at a giveaway prices to the governor’s allies. “Specifically, we are aware that, one Mercedez Benz lorry, popularly called 9/11, was sold for just N100,000.
The government landed properties are also been sold and shared among themselves without due process. Several government vehicles have been driven away and are kept in various mechanic workshops across the state and neighbouring states, with (their) registration numbers removed.’
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APC to Mimiko: use N6.8b Paris fund to pay workers
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State has told Governor Olusegun Mimiko to offset salary and pension arrears with the N6.8 billion collected from the Paris Club.
A statement by its Publicity Secretary, Abayomi Adesanya, alleged that N6.8 billion was paid to the Ondo State government on November 30, by the Paris Club, to pay salary and pension arrears.
The statement reads: “We are also aware of plans by the governor to divert the N6.8 billion for the payment of contractors for some fictitious and incomplete projects
“Our advice to Mimiko is to pay the pensioners and workers with the N6.8 billion Paris Club funds accordingly.”
The party called on the pensioners and workers to be watchful of the “wicked” plot against them and rise up to the occasion, especially in this festive season.
It noted with displeasure that while workers could no longer meet their financial obligations due to the six months’ salary owed them, Mimiko was planning to divert the money into phony contracts with the aim of enriching himself and cronies.
But Commissioner for Information Kayode Akinmade described the statement as baseless and unfounded.
He urged the APC stakeholders to contact the Federal Ministry of Finance to verify their ‘frivolous’ allegation.