Former Ondo Governor, Olusegun Mimiko dumps PDP, returns to LP

Barely four years after former Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko and his supporters dumped the Labour Party (LP) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the medical doctor-turned politician and his supporters will today re-join the LP.


Mimiko is expected to visit his Ward 7 in Ondo West Local Government Area, where he will collect LP’s membership card.

He aligned with the PDP before the 2015 presidential election, which Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won.

The former governor, who had a brief parley with reporters in Ondo town, has officially resigned from the PDP.

The letter reads: “I hereby with utmost humility inform you of my decision to resign my membership of the PDP with effect from today, June 13, 2018 for some well thought-out personal reasons.

“It was an honour working with many prominent Nigerians whom I shared the PDP platform for the entire period I was there as a member.

“Accept, please, the assurance of my very high regards.”

Mimiko used the platform of the LP in 2007 to dislodge the late Governor Olusegun Agagu after winning Appeal Court verdict in Benin, the Edo State capital.

He said: “I am conscious of my political history and determine to embrace new ideology.”

According to him, politics is about choices, and God has the way of every step of human beings in life.

The former governor recalled his political exploits as commissioner, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), minister, and two-term governor.

He noted that his decision to move to the LP would be value-added, saying his exit from the PDP followed “comprehensive frustration”.

PDP’s State Chairman Clement Faboyede, who served as Commissioner for Community Development and Cooperative Services in Mimiko’s administration, said his exit would not derail the main opposition party.

According to him, the PDP leadership in the state and other stakeholders have done their best to change Mimiko’s mind to remain in the party but all proved futile.

Mimiko started out as a member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 1999 and moved to the PDP where he was appointed a minister by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He dumped the PDP for LP on whose platform he was elected governor.

He left the LP in 2014 for the PDP and was a key campaigner for former President Goodcluk Jonathan’s re-election.