A former
Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Mimiko has explained why he dumped the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Labour Party, LP.
The former
governor formally dumped the PDP, on Wednesday to rejoin the Labour Party.
Mimiko who
spoke to reporters after obtaining the LP card at his ward in Ondo town, said
his decision to return to LP was borne out of the need to “catalyze a greater focus
on the ideological content of the Nigerian political firmament.”
He said, “We
have come with the conviction, consequent upon several years of practical
involvement in the nation’s political process, that the need for ideologically
focused political engagement is now more pressing than ever before.
“Virtually
all the existing political parties in Nigeria today belong to the right of the
centre, ensconced as it were in a neo-liberal mental construct, the name or
mantra they choose to enrobe themselves in notwithstanding.
“This is
evident not in terms of the pretentious claims they make to ideological purity,
but in the way and manner, they have used power; including the extent to which
they have mainstreamed the interest and welfare of the weak and poor in our
society.
“This
ideological fluidity, within which the nation’s extant democracy has evolved
since 1999, deserves now to be fully interrogated, with a view to engendering a
transition to a more ideologically defined system of engagement.
“We have
come to the conclusion that these are the missing links in our political
process, which have tended to make an all-comers game of it, and one in which
the interest of the mass of the people has been greatly marginalized in several
of our governance spaces, since 1999.
“The
decision was also not borne out of any disagreement with LP, either
ideologically or operationally. It was simply a decision that we needed to take
in the higher interest of our country.
“We
particularly had in focus the agenda of restructuring, which frontier the then
president had extended a bit by convoking the National Conference. We thus felt
compelled to work with his party, hoping that his victory in the 2015 election,
would translate the vision of restructuring the Nigerian federation into
reality
“We thought
helping to elect a presidential candidate that had demonstrated this commitment
to the restructuring of the country was well worth the risk associated with our
having to step out of our LP platform onto PDP, on which the former president
was running.
“Even now,
restructuring remains for us the critical plank without which the much-needed
stability and functionality of our country cannot be procured.”
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