Olusegun Mimiko officially joined the All Progressives Congress on Thursday, ending months of speculation after he resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party in April. The former governor of Ondo State was received at Ward 7, in the Ondo West Local Government Area secretariat in Ondo State, where he joined APC members alongside supporters.
Mimiko said he was backing President Bola Tinubu's administration because, in his words, there are a lot of good things being done by the president-led government. He said he was coming in to lend support to efforts aimed at keeping Nigeria on the path of peace, progress and genuine development, while also praising the student loan scheme and the push to decentralise the police. He described the NELFUND initiative as a commendable effort to democratise access to education and said the policing plan matched his long-standing support for state police.
The move gives the APC a high-profile addition in Ondo State, where Mimiko remains one of the best-known political figures. The Nation reported that he served as governor between 2009 and 2017, while other accounts place his tenure from 2009 to 2016. Either way, his switch is a notable turn for a politician long associated with the PDP and now publicly aligning himself with Tinubu's policy agenda.
Kolawole Babatunde, the APC's state chairman, welcomed him as a progressive and called the defection a homecoming. The event drew dignitaries, APC stalwarts, cabinet members of the Ondo State government and principal officers of the state house of assembly, underlining the political weight the party attached to the moment. A former federal lawmaker, Joseph Iranola Akinlaja, said the move showed Mimiko's political structure in Ondo State was now being consolidated inside the APC, with his supporters already in place and, now, their leader formally inside the fold.
For the APC, the defection is more than a local ceremony. It is a public endorsement from a former governor who said he sees Tinubu's policies on education, policing and development as reasons to align himself with the ruling party. For Mimiko, the message was simpler: after leaving the PDP in April, he has now decided the next phase of his politics belongs with the APC.
