By DAYO JOHNSON

AKURE- GOVERNORS Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State and his Ondo State counterpart Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, weekend, expressed different opinions on the role of the progressives incontemporary  South-West  politics.

While Aregbesola accused Mimiko of not being a progressive because he was not a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Mimiko said progressivism had been bastardised and that progressivism was all about performance.

Aregbesola who spoke in Owo at the fist convocation of Achievers University, said whoever that was not in ACN in the southwest geo-political zone was not a progressive.

The Osun State Governor who was given honorary doctorate degree together with Mimiko said: “The sun of progressive politics is rising in Yorubaland and there is no doubt in my mind that the sun will soon shine in Ondo State.”

According to him “the people of Yoruba land have been unmistakable in their preference for a preferred ideology that bound them together politically and that as they are coming to ascendancy, all other tendencies that are not in tandem with our own, must bow and be kicked out.

The progressive torrent is emerging in Ondo and just like the sun, it will get to the zenith. It is shinning already in other South-West states and so we want Ondo to be part of the glory of its brightness and be part of the joy of our traditional political tendency in Yoruba land, which is progressivism.

“In Yorubaland, we know the bearers of progressivism. The real progressive political leaders in Yorubaland included the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo; the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin, late Abraham Adesanya, the late Chief Bola Ige, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Segun Osoba, Lam Adesina, Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Niyi Adebayo.

“Where ever these people are in our own region, because they are the icons of progressive politics,  the real progressive camp and whoever is not in their camp, you don’t need any sophistication or intellectual wisdom to know that that person is not a progressive person, he is a counterfeit.”

Reacting through his Information Commissioner, Kayode Akinmade, Mimiko said: “We are not slaves and we will not be tele-guided, Progressives are not known through the words of mouth they are known through their performance and the overall progress recorded in their state during their tenure.

It is unfortunate that the word progressive had been abused by political pretenders who would like to hide under the great performers and highly respected politicians like the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to deceive the people.
”They should concentrate on providing social infrastructure in their state and improve the quality of life of their people instead of trying to expand the political sphere of their godfathers.”

We will not allow anybody to draw our government into any form of controversy at this period. We are at this moment committed to delivering dividends of democracy to our people. Our efforts in the last three years had been felt in all sectors in both the rural communities and in the urban centres and even the blind will notice that Ondo State is working under a pragmatic and focused leadership of Governor Olusegun Mimiko.

“Governor Aregbesola should focus on how to deliver dividends of democracy to the people of Osun state who elected him as governor and should not dabble into the politics of Ondo state as nobody in the Southwest can claim to be more Yoruba than another.”