Governor Olusegun Mimiko:

Jethro Ibileke/Benin

A group, Ondo State Professionals in Benin, has condemned in strong terms, a demostration allegedly carried out by members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Akure, in protest over the recognition of candidate of the Ali Modu-Sheriff faction of the party, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim for the November 26 gubernatorial election, by the INEC.

‎The protesters who demonstrated along major roads in Akure, the Ondo state capital, allegedly made bonfires at several points on major roads in the town, which was said to have destroyed the roads.

The Group said it has “watched with disgust‎ the events of few days ago of the so called protest, which was stage-managed to look like a state-wide protest by the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko,” adding that the protest portrayed the people of the state as barbaric and uncivilised.

Chairman of the Group, Dr. Ibikunle Falana, who signed a press statement ‎issued in Benin on Sunday, said there was no need for the protest since it was an internal affairs of the party.

He described the protest as “ill-conceived and unwarranted,” adding that ‎it should have been confined to the secretariat of PDP or the State Government House controlled by the PDP and not on the streets of the town paved with the tax payer’s money.

Falana accused Mimiko of not doing enough for people of the state during his eight years as Governor, “The so-called protest was carried out by hoodlums and NURTW members who burned tyres on the major roads, thereby destroying the roads constructed with tax payers’ money,” he said, noting that traders were thereby prevented from doing their businesses and students prevented from going to schools.