ONDO State Governor Olusegun Mimiko yesterday congratulated President Goodluck Jonathan on his victory at Saturdays presidential election, saying that his triumph was a call to duty. In a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Mimiko, Kolawole Olabisi, he recalled that the governor who became the leader of the state on the platform of the Labour Party (LP), directed the people of the state to cast their votes for Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following his (Jonathans) adoption by the LPs leadership. The governor equally led Ondo people to vote for the President on Saturday, saying the people of the state and Nigerians at large stood a better chance of gaining more from the Presidency of Goodluck Jonathan given his experience first as a deputy governor, governor, Vice President and then President and for rising above his party to become a true statesman by allowing the conduct of a truly free and fair election during the National Assembly election. Olabisi quoted the governor as saying: My President Sir, I want to, on behalf of the good people of Ondo State, congratulate you on this well-deserved victory and the outpour of love and goodwill from fellow Nigerians who discountenanced religious, ethnic and other sentiments to vote overwhelmingly for you. Your election, Sir, is a call to duty and Nigerians have spoken and given you their implicit support believing that you are capable of taking us to greater heights as a nation. The problems of the nation are enormous no doubt but they are surmountable and with our support and your able leadership, we shall all smile at the end of the day. I want to commend the entire people of the nation for this feat, for rising above ethnic sentiments and bigotry to prove our detractors, who felt we could not get it right as a people during this on-going election, wrong. Today, democracy, based on the sanctity of one man, one vote, reigns supreme in Nigeria. The people spoke and emphatically too that never would imposition of candidates against their choice be the order of the day. They voted against democracy at gunpoint and we are all happy. This is a new Nigeria and Mr. President accepts the assurances of our support and highest regards as you pilot us to a safe berth in the years ahead, Mimiko stated. Meanwhile, the state chapter of the LP has equally felicitated with Jonathan, describing his victory as a fillip for the nations budding democracy. It, however, carpeted the state chapter of the PDP for abandoning the President during the election last Saturday. Former Minister of Education, Dr. Olaiya Oni, who is also the LP state chairman in his reaction to Jonathans victory, asked the PDP members in the state not to rejoice over what they did not participate in. He said they abandoned their principal to the LP during the election only for them to want to reap where they did not sow. Following our partys (LP) ratification of the national leaderships decision to adopt President Jonathan as our candidate for last Saturdays election in Ondo State, we called the meeting of our leaders from across the state and asked them to mobilise our people in the state to vote for Jonathan as President.Of course, the PDP in the state was amazed by this turn of event as we mobilised people across the state to vote for the President despite his (Jonathan) not being in our party because they (PDP) lost woefully to the LP on April 9 at the National Assembly election. During the build-up to the presidential election, they neither mobilised their supporters nor came out on the election day with their agents. Unlike in the previous election when they struggled with us at INEC offices across the state with their agents, none was present at the polling units all over the state. It was as if they abandoned President Jonathan to us in anger with the knowledge that they had been outsmarted in their sullied game. If they had come out, mobilised the people like we in the LP did, Jonathan would have scored more votes. The result of what you all saw at the end of the polls was our doing alone. So PDP members in the state should not rejoice now because the victory of President Jonathan in Ondo State was not their doing. I have it on good authority from our men on the field that except for Minister of Defence, Mr. Tokunbo Kayode, most of them, including Olusegun Agagu, stayed indoors all day only for them to vote during the election and go back home again without mobilising their supporters as they did during the NASS election in which they lost woefully. So President Jonathan should be wary of men like these who are fair-weather friends and not friends in need. He should know them for what they are - gold diggers and political jobbers - out to reap where they did not sow, Oni stated.
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