It is an open secret that Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, then, as President elect supported Seyi Makinde of the PDP against Teslim Kolawole Folarin of the APC for the March, 2023 gubernatorial election.
The president elect then must be having in mind permutations towards 2027.
Apart from the fact that he had a kind of arrangements with the Group of five or should I say two dissident Governors of the PDP led by the then outgoing Governor of Rivers state and present Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, having the likes of Wike and Makinde on the plate towards 2027 looks sumptuous.
Even though, apart from Wike who might be said to have tilted things in Rivers, the same could not be said of the other four members of the gang of G-5 Governors.
While it was obvious that former Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue supported Peter Obi of the Labour Party and LP won the president election in Benue, the duo of former Governors Ikpeazu of Abia and Ugwuanyi of Enugu states, even on their own can not point to anything brought to the table as the results show that Peter Obi of the LP swept the presidential polls in all the South Eastern states and emphatically so.
For Seyi Makinde, I have never seen a luckier person.
It was clear as crystal that the then APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu never needed him to win the presidential election in Oyo state and the results of the Senatorial and House of Representatives clearly attested to that.
I am sure Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu knew this salient facts that he did not need Makinde’s support to win in Oyo.
However, as president elect, he went ahead to help Makinde secure a second term to the detriment of the APC and Its gubernatorial candidate!
The only reasonable inference to be drawn from the action of the president elect then is a scheme aimed at the future.
Unfortunately, if my guess is correct and I’m sure it is, then, I dare say that the president just got scammed.
He, the president didn’t seem to follow the antecedents of the fellow he went into the table with.
If he had, he would have known that Makinde is indeed one you require a long spoon if you must dine with him.
Prior to his election as Governor in 2019, a coalition of political parties was midwife by the former Governor Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja.
Without doubts, this coalition was the one that paved the way for Seyi Makinde to be expected Governor for the first term.
How Makinde treated the coalition and the agreements reached is still a sour taste in the mouths of many till today.
To Governor Makinde, political promises are just empty statements required to pave the way for personal interests simplicita, nothing more.
Whatever it was that Makinde and the president must have promised each other were just an act necessary for him to get whatever he wanted.
I think the president, with due respect just acted on certain combined impulse occassioned by the artificial wedge created by some disgruntled party stakeholders between him and the Oyo APC gubernatorial candidate.
It was this impulse that beclouded his judgment to award Oyo state to Makinde.
I believe by now, everyone who participated in the barter and this is including the president must have realized that Makinde is bad market.
Recently, the same Seyi Makinde have been vocal, criticising some policies of the Federal Government, most especially, the removal of subsidies on Petroleum products.
He was also quick to emphatically dismissed the endorsement of Tinubu for a second term after Ortom, a member of the G-5 like Makinde proclaimed it recently.
As if that is not enough, Governor Makinde is now very active, mending fences and repositioning his Party, the PDP towards 2027.
Now is the time to ask everyone who propagated the idea of endorsing Makinde for a second term against the candidate of their party to explain to us what they have gained from such misadventures.
For me, we have just strengthened a potential political nemesis.
Unfortunately, what has been done can not be undone.
SOLA ABEGUNDE.
