Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State made shocking revelations about Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria recently: “You don’t know the situation I was in then. Look, you don’t know Obasanjo. I worked with him. In history, go and check it out. There are not too many people who were able to resign from Obasanjo’s government.”

“In fact, you can’t do it. Sir, you can’t just do it. I did not only resign, when I came to the Federal Executive Council after resignation, everybody thought they were seeing a ghost. Obasanjo hounded me out of Abuja, virtually. We came out with a new party. Anybody that gave N1m then, you can’t imagine how we would celebrate him or her. Four months to election, we were raising money in hundreds of thousands: N100,000; N50,000; N20,000”

“I still remember one architect, who sent us a cheque for N1m; we celebrated it. I did not have N1m when I decided to run and challenge Agagu. I did not have N1m anywhere. You may not believe it; that is the gospel truth. You get what I am talking about? I was ready to lose. I didn’t care. the people wanted me. I could feel it. I just could touch it. Ask from anybody who served in the cabinet then.”

“Yayale Ahmed was Head of Service, Ufot Ekaette was the SGF, General Mohammed was there, Nweke Junior was there. Even people who were not in government: Ask from Akin Osuntokun; ask from Femi Fani-Kayode. They were begging me not to go, saying, ‘Obasanjo threatened you publicly and you still want to go?’ They begged me. Obasanjo called me. He said, ‘I will change your ministry, I will hand you over to the incoming President. Can’t you understand?’ I said, ‘Thank you, Baba. It is a privilege but I am going’. He said, ‘You dare not’. I said, ‘I am going’. He said, ‘Okay. Try me’. Do you understand the circumstance?”

“That time, I did not run to Tinubu. They were the two power brokers (Obasanjo and Tinubu) then. The natural thing to do was to go and hide behind these people. Tinubu would give me the ticket and give me money to run and I would be more immune from Baba’s bullets. I didn’t go to him; I stood on my own.”

“Four months to the election – four months, December 14, 2006 – was when we inaugurated the Labour Party in Ondo State and election was April 2007. Four months and we formed a new party. We set up the structure, set up candidates. We won all elections and we were going with our bare knuckles. I didn’t go to Tinubu then.”