Mimiko decamps to PDP

The Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko on Thursday officially decamped to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the Labour Party.
He and his supporters were received back to the fold by the Vice President, Namadi Sambo, Senate President, David Mark, Deputy National Chairman, Uche Secondus and top party men at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja.

Mimiko said he left the PDP  eight years ago when internal democracy within the party shrank.
Noting that he has no particular office to run for in 2015, he said that he has come back to the PDP towards supporting President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election next year.
He said: “Unfortunately at some point in the party’s history, that room for democracy got greatly conscripted. Thus, some eight years ago, when we had need to run for office and the space for internal democracy within PDP had considerably shrank, we chose to leave, but then, not to align with the then emergent opposition party in the land, the ACN.”
“Rather, we chose to move away from both and pick up Labour Party, a party that was quite modest in its aspirations for national elective offices and completely unknown in Ondo State where we wanted to run for office.
“Precisely on December 14, 2006, we publicly announced LP as our choice of platform. To the glory of God, four months later, in the April 14, 2007 election, we got the mandate of our people to govern Ondo State. Although our election was stolen by the political tendency in power in Abuja at the time, thanks to a judiciary that continues to be profoundly alert to its duty in a democracy, we managed to retrieve our mandate two years later.
“Today, just barely one year into our second term in office, it is obvious that we do not have any office to run for either now or in 2015. Yet, we feel compelled to join hands with the tendency that is aboard today in the PDP, led by a President that is as focused as he is patriotic, a team that has demonstrated so much promise in its commitment to democracy without which the challenges facing our nation cannot be overcome.
“And as someone who is positioned today by providence to speak for the people of Ondo State and our collaborators and admirers across the nation, I do not have any doubt whatsoever in my mind that the interest of our people in Ondo State, the South West Zone and that of Nigeria too, will be better served in the PDP in the evolving political configuration in our nation.”