Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state is no longer hiding his disdain for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his Government.
In fact, the Oyo state Governor have removed all veil and have assumed the position of tormentor -in-chief to the Federal Government.
Those who don’t know the Governor very well will be surprised at the turn of events between the Governor and the man he was praising to the highest heavens not too long ago.
Some of us who know the Governor through his antecedents are never surprised.
The shoe is now on the other feet and Governor Makinde is following the tide.
Governor Makinde have shown, by anticidents that he is a fair weather friend.
He was and I don’t know if he is still a member of the G-5 Governors who, though stayed in the PDP, but yet claimed to have worked for the emergence of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the last presidential election.
Politics is sometimes a bizarre game that tend to confuse even the smartest of politicians.
If it were not, some of us wondered what Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as APC presidential candidate set out to achieve by giving so much ground to a Group of five PDP Governors who obviously were riding on mere momentum to razzmatazz presidential candidates.
No matter how you look at it, eventually, the G-5 were a bunch of overrated individuals whose impact was zero in the emergence of the president.
We all know what happened in the individual states of the Governors.
Unfortunately, the romance between the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, then presidential candidate and the G-5 cost the APC the Governorship of Oyo state.
It is therefore safe to say that the president benefitted nothing from his association with the exaggerated G-5 Governors.
For the benefits of arguments, some might say we benefitted something in Rivers state.
I will not agree that we do. Rather, a careful look at the situation in Rivers state will show that we have gained a man and lost a Party.
What could have been considered our gain in Rivers state is the Governor of the state if he remains in line with his predecessor with whom we have an understanding but that obviously not the situation now.
So, what have we gained?
Oyo state scenario is worse.
We had a Party which was on course to win the Governorship election hands down after having delivered the state to the president with about the widest margin of win and after having delivered the three Senatorial seats and nine out of the fourteen seats in the House of Representatives to the APC.
Unfortunately and due to some arrangements with the G-5 Governors, Oyo state was ceded to Makinde and the PDP.
You could say that some disgruntled elements within the Oyo APC had their own share of blame in the misadventures that gave Oyo to Makinde.
However, if it were not for the direct investment from above, there is no way APC would have lost Oyo.
Now, Makinde got elected with help from the president elect as he then was.
How has he now return the favor?
Makinde is returning the favor the way he returned the favor to those who sacrificed their ambitions for him to be elected Governor in his first term.
Whatever or however you treat the pepper, it will always be pepperish.
“Bi a gun ata lodo, bi a lo ata ni olo, iwa ata ko nii Fi ata sile”.
It is obvious now that whatever was the line charted by president Tinubu and the PDP Governors of G-5, Governor Makinde has other ideas and will not follow.
What is left for the president is to see Governor Makinde’s let down as a blessing in disguise.
The president with due respect have not been fair to Oyo APC at all and it is largely due to his romance with Makinde and the G-5.
The structure that delivered the highest margin of win to him is still intact in Oyo state despite the neglect and deprivation.
This is a good time for the president to oil that structure for his and APC’s future undertakings.
“Teni nteni”, what is yours is yours.
Since Governor Makinde have broken the strings of the beads president Tinubu put in his waist undeservedly, the president should pick the bids, restring and put the beads on the waist of his children in the Oyo APC.
At any rate, they are the ones deserving of it ab initio.
“Bi eera ba fi ni pe igi, a won danu ni”. If the ant take you for a dead wood, you yank it off.
This is the right time for president Tinubu to yank off the ant that is taking him for a dead wood.
SOLA ABEGUNDE.
