Mimiko: A columnist and his revisionism -By Kayode Akinmade

Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko

In “Mimiko and the poverty of leadership in Ondo,” a columnist, Bayo Fapohunda, purports to show that the Ondo State governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, has not achieved anything in the last six years in the saddle. In so doing, the author of “Mimiko and the future of Ondo State” (a diatribe published in August 2014, among others) arrogates to himself the position of Pontifex Maximus of development theorising, but surprisingly does not back up his postulations with relevant data. Thus, his doggerel does not even qualify as Bolekaja criticism—Chinweizu et al at least provide data in their Wole Soyinka critique—and so cannot really be subjected to intellectual inquiry. Nevertheless, in dealing with arrogance informed by ignorance, it may be necessary to state simple facts.

Fapohunda’s theme is the poverty of leadership, but nowhere in his doggerel does this concept enjoy a definition. That would be a luxury in a blind hatchet job meant to criminalise Mimiko’s dogged refusal to team up with the destroyers of the Yoruba ideological fabric masquerading as key players of “progressivism.” This explains Fapohunda’s pathetic claim that “In his quest to mainstream Ondo State under a federal umbrella (sic), Mimiko neglected his primary role to provide development at home.” The writer is not tired of his demagoguery, heightened ahead of the October 12, 2012 governorship election in Ondo State, during which his god returned to Lagos completely empty-handed. It is no wonder then that for the writer, “All that has happened since 1999 is a state governed by confused administrations,” confused administrations being those that were not run by the defunct Action Congress, now the All Progressives Congress, through sustained media propaganda devoid of intellectual content.

The distinguished personalities and globally renowned institutions that have testified to the Mimiko revolution—Afenifere, the United Nations, the World Bank, Professors Kesley Harrison and Olu Akinkugbe, the Nigeria Labour Congress, the Nigerian Medical Association, the National Association of Nigerian Students, etc—are so diverse and plenteous that Fapohunda’s diatribe is so pathetic. First, Dr. Mimiko, who he detests with so much passion, remains the most labour-friendly governor in the country to date, paying the highest minimum wage (N22, 000) in the country even though Ondo comes behind several states in revenue allocation from the Federation Account. The writer harps on Ondo being an oil-producing state but fails to mention that the state, like others, has no control over its resources in Nigeria’s skewed federal structure.

In 2012, Dr. Mimiko was in Naples, Italy, honoured by the United Nations as the winner of its 2012 Habitat Scroll of Honour award during the sixth edition of the World Urban Forum, in recognition of his contributions to sustainable human settlement development in Ondo State. In the letter announcing Mimiko as winner of the award, coordinator of the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour, Ana B. Moreno, said the choice of the governor was the unanimous decision of an international jury. There were only two winners on the entire African continent: the Mayor of Harare and Mimiko. Need one say more here?

Fapohunda audaciously claims that “In healthcare, the governor showcases a paltry child hospital while all the state specialist hospitals and primary healthcare facilities are worse than mere consulting clinics,” even though he knows that Mimiko’s Abiye programme, adopted by the World Bank as a model for mother and child care in Africa, has been keyed into by the Federal Government. Prior to the Mimiko era, Ondo State had the worst health indices in the South-West of Nigeria with its material mortality rate far above the national average of 545 per 100,000 live births. Today, it has the least rate (100 per 100,000 live births). The Akure and Ondo Abiye hospital are fully operational, while work will soon commence on the sites of Ikare Akoko and Okitipupa mother and child hospitals. This, in Fapohunda’s view, is not development. After all, the APC is not in charge.

Abiye’s landmark achievements in seven key areas include: managing and discharging routine post-vaginal delivery patients within 24 hours and post-caesarean section patients within 48 hours without compromising on quality of care, thereby reducing cost of care and work load per patient, and increasing patient turnover by more than 100 per cent, simultaneously; developing a confidential enquiry format of reporting and recording maternal and child deaths with emphasis on avoidable factors, missed opportunities and levels of substandard care; developing an easily reproducible scoring system of tracking maternal morbidities and near-miss mortalities to expand our maternal health data base.

Abiye is also successful in developing a unique and cost-effective digitalised drug procurement system that has practically eradicated out-of-stock syndrome, the bane of many free health schemes across the country; having in its possession state-of-the-art training mannequins including electronic force monitoring birthing and airway management simulators for life-like practical demonstrations and applications on emergency care; collaborating with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to conduct a multi-centre double blind randomised clinical trial on management of postpartum haemorrhage using tranexamic acid (an anti-fibrinolytic agent); and, finally, developing a revolutionary health education video CD in vernacular (subtitled in English), emphasising birth preparedness and complication readiness. Ondo’s Trauma centre, kidney care centre have been described as world class, while the general hospitals in the state have received a facelift. Isn’t this development?

Indeed, the implications of Abiye were aptly captured by former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Professor Kelsey Harrison, in a lecture titled “Preventing Maternal Deaths in Nigeria: Looking back and looking forward”, at the seventh Annual Olikoye Ransome-Kuti Lecture held at the Lagos University teaching Hospital. Hear Harrison, an Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology: “Under the leadership of Governor Mimiko of Ondo State, a functional health care system for maternal and child health has been set up and from all accounts, it works. The people for whom the set-up is established trust it, with the result that its coverage is increasing rapidly. Quality records are kept, they are easy to retrieve, so that with time the date obtained when analysed, will provide much correct information not only for health planning but also socio-economic and political advancement.”

Six months earlier in the USA, the verdict of the team of experts from around the globe, including the World Bank and representatives of the United States government, who spoke at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, during a presentation by Dr. Mimiko was clear: for Nigeria to attain the Millennium Development Goals in health and reverse the prevalent high mortality rate among mothers and children, it must adopt the Abiye programme with immediate dispatch.

It was Mimiko who set up Ministry of Community Development and Cooperative Services which has complete over 650 projects to date. Appalled by the distressing conditions in which the majority of Ondo people were trapped before he assumed office, Governor Mimiko decided that no parent in Ondo State would henceforth work himself/herself to death trying to send children to dilapidated schools. To date, he has built 56 mega schools, and one is currently serving as the temporary site of a federal polytechnic in Ile-Oluji. School uniforms, sandals, etc, are all free. Many seasoned commentators have celebrated the phenomenon of school children queuing up by the bus stops and taking a jolly ride to school in fully air conditioned luxury buses free of charge. By the way, it was Mimiko who established the Ondo State University of Health Sciences. The Adekunle Ajasin University in Akungba-Akoko, rated as the best state-owned university in Nigeria, charges the least fees across the country. Yet, Fapohunda lies that Mimiko has not achieved anything in education!

In its bid to make Akure and other towns in the state functional, the state government evolved the mechanic village, where auto workers now operate in a state-of-the art environment. Between 1976 and 2009, Ondo had only one dual carriageway. Under Mimiko, it now has seven, with over 500 km of new roads built. Is development about his own conjecture? When last did Fapohunda visit Owo, Akure or Ondo? Is development dictated by his fancy, because Ondo has not come under the vice grip of his paymasters? Most of the sentences in Fapohunda’s latest diatribes were lifted from “Mimiko and the future of Ondo State.”

A sad future awaits those who readily collude with the demons to kill at night and readily join the humans to mourn at dawn.

Akinmade is the Ondo State Commissioner for Information