Mimiko Resigns from PDP, Returns to LP …LP rejects Mimiko's bid to return to party

After much speculation, the immediate past Governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, on Wenesday resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with a plan to return to Labour Party (LP).

The decision of Mimiko was expressed in a letter he addressed to the PDP chairman in Ondo West Local Government Area.

The letter put paid to the months of speculation on whether Mimiko would dump PDP and return to LP.

Mimiko, a two term governor of Ondo State, was elected on the platform of the LP in 2007 but was not sworn in until February 2009 when the Court of Appeal in Benin-city declared him the winner of the 2007 election.

The former governor left the LP on October 2014 in preparatory to the 2014 general election.

In the resignation letter, Mimiko said he was resigning due to personal reason.

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

"It was an honour working with many prominent Nigerians with 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 said.

The formal return of Mimiko to LP would take place today at Ward 7, Ondo West Local Government Area, Ondo Town while he would address some of his supporters at the Ondo Civic Centre.

However, following a new development, the LP yesterday said it would reject any attempt by Mimiko to return to the party.

Speaking with journalists at Labour House in Abuja, the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Mike Omotosho, explained that given the former governor's political antecedents, there would be no room to accommodate him in the party.

According to him, "It has come to our knowledge the moves by the immediate past Governor of Ondo State, Mimiko, to return to the Labour Party. Nigerian workers wish to put a disclaimer to this ill-fated adventure.

"The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) is fully aware of plans by Mimiko to destabilise the current gains made by workers to reclaim and reposition the party. It is very obvious that the sole purpose of Mimiko's re-approach to the LP is to use the workers' party to launder his sagging political image."

Omotosho stressed that Mimiko abandoned the LP for PDP a few days to LP’s October 2015 National Convention, saying such a “treachery and betrayal of a party that gave the former governor succour in the darkest hour of his political career, especially as manifest in his two-term victory on the ticket of the party, is to say the least, cheap and callous.’’