The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recognized People’s Democratic Party’s governorship candidate in next month’s election in Ondo State, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, faulted Friday’s protest in the state as the handiwork to Governor Olusegun Mimiko.

Youths and okada riders in Akure, the state capital and Ondo had Friday shut down the two towns for several hours to show their displeasure at the decision of the INEC to substitute the name of Mr.Eyitayo Jegede with that of Jimoh as the party’s candidate.

Jegede belongs to the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the party while Ibrahim is of the Alo Modu Sheriff faction.

Ibrahim in a statement entitled ‘Tyre Burning For Sympathy’ and personally signed by him said the protest had Mimiko’s signature all over it.

He alleged that the governor way back in 2009 ‘deceived’ the election petition tribunal in the state that “there were security issues in the state, leading to the cancellation of results in eight out of 18 local governments of the state.”

He added: “Mimiko called on the drivers’ union in the state, whose chairman is his relative, to gather disposed tyres across the state and burn them so as to show that there are security challenges in Akure town.

“While the tyres were burning, school children were attending their classes. Banks were opened, market women and traders were carrying on their economic activities, courts were sitting and more tyres were burning by the side of the road.

“Regrettably, Mimiko’s orthodoxy has played out to be fake, empty and unbecoming of a person that occupies the position of the governor of a state .

“This tyre burning for sympathy will not work as Ondo State remains peaceful.”