LP WARNS OF IMMINENT TROUBLE IN ONDO

Olusegun Agagu

The Ondo State chapter of the Labour Party on Sunday called on the President, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro to urgently warn the embattled Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Agagu to order in the interest of peace saying that should anything untoward happen to its flag bearer, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, the State would burn to cinders.

The LP’s latest warning is coming on the heel of Saturday’s attacks on Mona Clinic, Ondo owned by Dr Mimiko. The clinic is situated inside an estate owned by Dr. Mimiko along the Yaba Road in the ancient town. For close to thirty minutes at about 9:07pm on Saturday night in Ondo town, gunmen led by the Chairman of the Ondo East Local government area of Ondo State, Mr. Charles Adeduro rained gunshots into the clinic ostensibly thinking that the LP Governorship candidate was sleeping there.

Adeduro who became the Chairman of the Ondo East Council on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was seen at the neighbouring Akure Garage in the town shooting into the air shortly before the attack. He was in one of the Council’s official project Toyota Hilux double cabin van. He later led over 30 armed youths in two Toyota Hiace Hummer Buses to the clinic. All the vehicles had their plate number covered.

The party had initially tried to attack Dr Mimiko’s Rehoboth Villa situated a few metres from his clinic but when they couldn’t do that due to the heavy presence of security men as well as report that Mimiko was not in the Villa, they left for the clinic to wreck havoc on it thinking that Mimiko who was in town last week was sleeping there.

But for the prompt response of the police from the Yaba Police Station and Mimiko’s security men who raced to the scene and beat back the attackers, a lot of people would have been wounded. However several properties worth millions of naira were destroyed while the sporadic gunshots lasted.

In his reaction to the latest attack, which he described as “Agagu’s final solution to his sinking ambition of governing the State at all cost”, LP’s Director of Press, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi noted that the time has come for President Yar’Adua “to immediately and urgently too, call Agagu to order as any further attempts on the lives of Dr Mimiko, his siblings and indeed on that of any of LP leaders and members would henceforth not be taken lying low”.

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According to the LP’s spokesman, following last Wednesday’s ruling of the Justice Garba Nabaruma’s led Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal in which it granted Mimiko’s request to bring in Mr. Adrian Forty, a forensic expert from London to testify in his case against the purported victory of Agagu despite spirited efforts by Agagu to frustrate that move, Agagu summoned a meeting in the Government House. “Part of the resolution at that meeting attended by his war cabinet including a man who had vowed to stop Mimiko from becoming governor at a cost, Chief Segun Adegoke, Agagu’s Political Adviser, it was resolved that Mimiko and other leaders of the LP must be eliminated at all cost. Indeed, Segun Adegoke was reported to have blamed their present woes at the tribunal on Agagu’s refusal to permit him to oversee the burning down the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with a view to obliterating all the evidence now being used by Dr Mimiko during the tensed period that followed the controversial election in the State. It was then resolved that Mimiko must go.

“Barely two days after, Mimiko’s Clinic was attacked and but for God, he could have been killed were he to be inside the place at that material time.“Your Excellency, we have had cause, in the last 9 months to call on you to kindly prevail on Agagu to
reign in his killer squads who have been after our lives since we commenced the legal battle to retrieve the mandate freely given to Dr Olusegun Mimiko by the people of Ondo State before Agagu was fraudulently rigged in. This would be a record six times in which Mimiko’s residence would be attacked by gunmen who are doing so on the order of Agagu and his acolytes. We
have chosen to thread the path of peace because we are sure that the Judiciary will do justice in this matter otherwise Ondo State would have been reduced to ashes now as Agagu definitely wanted by his series of provocations.

“We are therefore calling on you, dear Mr. President to save us as any further attempt on the lives of  Dr Mimiko, his siblings, our members and leaders will no be taken lying low. We have maintained the peace despite series of attacks, maiming and incarcerations of our members under spurious charges on the order of Agagu. No doubt, Agagu plans is to create a situation wherein there will be tension that would necessitate the enthronement of a State of emergency and its attendant result which will give him a soft landing as the whole exercise we embarked on through the institution of a legal process to reclaim our mandate would have been jeopardized by that development.“If truly he won as he had initially claimed, Agagu should allow the tribunal to do its job rather than embarking of the sponsoring of violence on innocent people of Ondo state whose sins were that they refused to vote for him due to his lackluster performance despite over N450 billion that had accrued to Ondo State during his tenure. Please, Mr. President, Save our Souls.”