MIMIKO STILL NOT PART OF THE NEW LABOUR PARTY

 

Chidi Nwachukwu

Events and circumstances occasioned by Dr. Abdulrahamon Olusegun Mimiko’s defection back to the Labour Party (LP), from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), are already getting tumultuous reactions from both the Labour Party’s leadership and from political pundits. The opinions of the observers of the Nigerian political atmosphere are also not left out in the gamut of reactions trailing the controversial development. The Labour Party’s leadership, under the “no-nonsense” stewardship of Dr. Mike Omotosho, has recently rejected the defection, labelling it an ill-conceived strategy devised to stall the progress being recorded by the party. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the rightful owners of the party and under whose auspices the party was established, have equally registered their disapproval of the move.

That Dr. Mimiko succeeded in wangling his way back into the Labour Party, leaves much to be desired as both the leadership of the party and its sympathizers have described his defection back to the very party he abandoned some years ago, as a deed that reeks of mischief and a desperate move towards securing a vehicle through which he can drive his selfish political ambitions.

Dr. Mimiko rode on the back of the institutional party to actualize his goal of governing Ondo State, and dumped the party when he felt he no longer needed it. He abandoned the party when it needed him most, and pitched his tent with the then ruling party, the PDP. When accosted to give reasons for his unsavoury decision, he explained that it was in a bid to help the ruling party actualize its goals that he abandoned his own party – a party that came to his rescue when no one else was willing to give him a breeding space. In other words, his own party’s goals were not worth actualizing. His action at that time was seen by political pundits as the worst case of bare-faced political betrayal and a classic example of “biting the finger that fed one.”

It is very instructive that Dr. Mimiko is still the only Nigerian governor that has ever been elected under the platform of the Labour Party. His emergence as governor in 2008 gave the Labour Party a pride of place in the political sphere of Nigeria as the party from thenceforth, ceased to exist only INEC’s list of registered political parties, but became a force to reckon with and started to enjoy unprecedented recognition. Mimiko’s victory was meant to herald a new dawn for the hitherto obscure party, and set it to run speedily on the path of political relevance.
But Mimiko, in his pursuit for selfish interests, jeopardized the party’s chances of gaining ascendancy in the political scheme of things, and engineered the party’s quick fall to its nadir. His defection to the PDP in 2014 was the death knell for the Labour Party. When he pitched his tent with the ruling party, his teeming supporters followed suit, leaving the Labour Party in a state of absolute wreckage and nothingness.

Fast forward to the golden era when Dr. Omotosho, the visionary leader, took up the mandate as national chairman of the party. It was under Dr. Omotosho’s watch that the Labour Party was midwifed back to health. The ailing party was helped up by the doctor, diagnosed of the exact cause of its ailments, had a proper prognosis of its ailment done, and finally had good medicine administered to it. And today, the once bedridden party has bounced back to perfect health. It is quite ironical that those who connived to inflict the party with the debilitating ailment that almost took its life, are back again to inject it with the same virus that earlier rendered it incapacitated, and the good doctor has sworn never to be alive and watch such wickedness happen again.

Dr. Omotosho can boldly ascribe to himself the title of “Father of the New Labour Party,” and he won’t have to answer to anyone if he decides to do so. The erstwhile leader of the party, Mr. Dan Nwanyanwu, didn’t do much to save the party from the claws of the political jobbers and opportunists who invaded it, desecrated it, and abandoned it in shreds. Nwanyanwu’s leadership through sheer negligence and its lackluster style of operation, subjected the party to absolute ridicule. The party was almost non-existent under that travesty of a leadership, and it wallowed in obscurity even while other parties, particularly the newly founded ones, flourished beyond leaps and bounds.

It was very obvious that the then Labour Party leaders deliberately abandoned it to rot because their myopic vision wouldn’t let them see the great potentials that were inherent in the party. And when they were leaving along with their paymaster, Mimiko, they shabbily vouchsafed some inglorious elements with the leadership of the party, and hurriedly joined the diverse parties they considered as “booming.” It was not shocking to see the same Nwanyanwu who had shed tears of regrets and remorse when about leaving the Labour Party, pitch his tent with the All Progressives Democratic Alliance (APDA), an offshoot of the People’s Democratic Party, that was set up by the then Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the party to serve as a buffer in the event that it lost its leadership tussle to the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff-led faction at the Supreme Court.

Nwanyanwu’s tears have been described by the Congress of Promoters of the Labour Party Ideals (CPLPI), a unit of the Labour Party that has been very vociferous in speaking up against the bastardization of the party,  as “crocodile tears,” that hadn’t even the list iota of emotion.

The CPLPI has condemned in very strong terms the ‘re-defection’ of Mimiko to the Labour Party, and has registered its utter displeasure with the way and manner the Abdulkadir Abdulsalam-led faction has been parading itself as the legitimate faction of the party.

The CPLPI, chaired by one Mr. Aremo Adeola Adepoju, is therefore calling on all friends of the Labour Party to continue to hold the forte and not lose faith as the standard that the party has already attained under the able leadership of Dr. Omotosho, cannot and will not be compromised by anyone, not even by those who believe that they can influence everything and everyone with their ill-gotten wealth. The CPLPI is making it clear that the improved status that they Labour Party has been able to attain through the sheer commitment, diligence and sacrifice of its present leadership, cannot and will never wane.

The CPLPI has advised all serious-thinking and goal-oriented politician who wish to pitch their tent with the Labour Party to distance themselves from the “pseudo” leadership of Alhaji Abdulsalam who is not only a mere impostor and identity thief, but is even worse, having numerous charges of criminal misappropriation of party’s funds hanging on his neck. The CPLPI is shocked that Alhaji Abdulsalam who has been lying low all this while, playing along with the party’s current leadership with the hope that he will get a soft landing in the event that his criminal records are revisited, has suddenly been jolted back to his characteristic “double-facedness” and hyper-activeness by Dr. Mimiko’s defection back to the Labour Party.

The CPLPI is even more worried that Alhaji Abdulsalam has not been considering the consequences of his reneging on the terms of the “out of court settlement” he entered into with the current leadership of the party which incidentally was adjudicated over by an Abuja High Court. He appears not to be aware that the series of uncouth behaviours that he has been putting up lately, which clearly renege on his own side of the agreement he entered into with the current party leadership, amount to ‘contempt of court.’

He and his misguided followers were quick to receive Dr. Mimiko back into the party because their ideologies run contrary to the ideals of the new Labour Party under Dr. Omotosho.
The CPLPI has further asked friends of the Labour Party to disregard the huge crowd that rallied around Mimiko on the day of his defection as the crowd was merely hired, and did not comprise of card-carrying members of the Labour Party.
The CPLPI is further blaming the crisis that engulfed the Labour Party before now, on the visionless leadership of Alhaji Abdulsalam in whose custody the Nwanyanwu leadership entrusted the party, for neglecting to hold the National Working Committee (NWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) meetings throughout the over two-year period that it held the forte.

The CPLPI is even further disturbed that INEC turned a blind eye to all these lapses that went on under the Abdulsalam leadership of the Labour Party - lapses that are tantamount to very gross misconduct   under the laws of the establishment of political parties in Nigeria. That law frowns at negligence to hold NWC and NEC meetings. The law stipulates that political parties should hold each of these two meetings at least once in every two years, but the Labour Party under Abdulsalam never held any of these meetings, and beyond that, the Abdulsalam leadership did not deem it necessary to oversee the affairs of state branches of the Labour Party, thereby disorganizing the party at the grassroots level and weakening the party’s internal democracy.

The CPLPI went on to accuse Abdulsalam of ascribing sole and exclusive powers to himself, an action that destroyed the party’s supremacy and weakened its political fibres.

But going forward, the new Labour Party is on its way to making a lasting impression on the Nigerian political sphere, and will stop at nothing to achieve this noble feat. While the CPLPI is not averse to the age-long political tradition of receiving and  welcoming back “prodigal sons” to their father’s house, it however, strongly abhors “double-facedness” as is characteristic of the Mimiko camp which obviously has no good plans for the party.

The new Labour Party has set an agenda for itself, and it is poised to actualizing it against all odds. It is now a totally brand new, a revamped and a rejigged political party. Its ideologies have been embraced and assimilated by its renewed crop of members, and the CPLPI is hereby notifying members of the party and its friends across the globe that Dr. Mimiko and his co-travellers will not find in it a safe place to execute their stock in trade which is mass deception, use of money to influence subversive tendencies in members, and disorganization of party’s programs and agenda.

The new Labour Party is sure to make a an indelible mark on the Nigerian political turf in 2019, and there is not limit to how far this great party can go in proving its worth in days to come.

It is a new dawn for the Labour Party of Nigeria!

Up Labour Party!!