Labour Party rejects Mimiko's application to rejoin them after he resigns from PDP

NIGERIA'S Labour Party has rejected an application from former Ondo State governor Dr Segun Mimiko to return to its fold after he resigned from the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday.

Elected as Ondo State governor on the Labour Party's platform in February 2009, Dr Mimiko left in October 2015 and declared for the PDP, throwing his weight behind then president Dr Goodluck Jonathan just ahead of the presidential elections. Yesterday, however, Dr Mimiko surprisingly resigned from the PDP and sought to return to the Labour Party.

His resignation letter read: “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 the many prominent Nigerians with whom I shared the PDP platform for the entire period I was in there as a member.

Dr Mimiko became the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and was a key member of Dr Jonathan's campaign team. However, Dr Mike Omotosho, the chairman of the Nigerian Labour Party said he will not be accepted back into their fold as they are fully aware of plans by Dr Mimiko to destabilise the current gains being made by workers to reclaim and reposition the party.

Dr Omotosho said: “It is very obvious that the sole purpose of Mimiko’s re-approach to the Labour Party is to use the workers’ party to launder his sagging political image. Nigerians would recall that Mimiko abandoned the Labour Party for the Peoples Democratic Party a few days to Labour Party’s October 2015 national convention.

“Such treachery and betrayal of a party that gave the former governor succour in the darkest hour of his political career, especially, as it manifests in his two term victory on the ticket of Labour Party is to say the least, cheap and callous. It also reveals a paucity of knowledge of the philosophy of the Labour Party as a people-rooted party and dearth of class consciousness on his part."

He added that the leadership of the party would continue to work to rebuild the Labour Party, especially through the instrumentality of the Political Commission. Dr Omotosho urged all workers and indeed genuine lovers of popular democracy to ignore the political theatrics of people like Dr Mimiko.

“He has shown Nigerian workers that he cannot be trusted. The Labour Party is no longer a transit bus to strange political destinations, particularly under the subterfuge of people like him.

“In the same vein, the Labour Party wishes to categorically disown and-condemn recent posturing and proclamations by some politicians in Ekiti State who claim that they are the candidates of the Labour Party in the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti State. The Labour Party has no candidate in the July 14, 2018 governorship election in Ekiti State, so the Independent national Electoral Commission, workers and the Ekiti electorate should not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the antics of political impostors," Dr Omotosho added.