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.
