Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko, is trying to blackmail teachers in the State to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential contest next week.
A source in the State told SaharaReporters the governor is traveling around with his campaign team, forcing the teachers into meetings with him and preventing them from undertaking their official responsibilities.
The trip is part of Governor Mimiko’s no-holds-barred carrot-and-stick assault on voters in an effort to ensure victory for President Jonathan in the March 28 presidential contest.
Yesterday the team arrived in Ondo West Local Government where the governor cancelled all school and compelled all the teachers to be present, with attendance taken.
“The governor was not present,” one teacher told SaharaReporters, “but [members of] his campaign team was around telling us why we should not vote for Buhari and APC.”
According to the disgusted teacher who asked not to be named, “They educated us on what we’ve known. Telling us history. They thought we are happy sitting and some people standing while they are vibrating, telling us lies.” One of the teachers disclosed that while some teachers were given N400, during yesterday’s campaign they were each given N100 by Mimiko’s team.
Governor Mimiko, who defected to the Peoples Democratic Party from the Labour Party last year, is desperate to deliver Ondo to President Jonathan, and is known to be using bribes as one of his weapons.
It would be recalled that last Monday, he bribed some former members of the Peoples Democratic Movement, pretending to be current members, to “endorse” Jonathan. They then held a press conference at the Adegbemile Cultural Centre Press in Akure, claiming they had endorsed the PDP candidate.
“Quote me anywhere,” one of the beneficiaries said after the make-believe press conference, “Governor Mimiko gave us money through our leaders to endorse President Goodluck Jonathan for second term.”
Bashir Yusuf, the National Chairman of the PDM, subsequently disclosed that those who claimed to be members of the movement endorsing Jonathan were “not card carrying members” of the movement.
Nonetheless, he said, the PDM had as far back as January already endorsed the candidature of General Muhammadu Buhari of the APC for the presidency.
Source:
saharareporters.com