POLITICAL NOTES
The Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) recently spoke the minds of many indigenes of the state when it lambasted Governor Seyi Makinde for ‘acting’ as a personal aide to Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
The state APC Publicity Secretary, Olawale Shadare, accused Makinde of abandoning governance in the state to follow Wike around like his Personal Assistant. He said the governor’s action has degraded the state’s reputation as a pacesetter.
Shadare warned residents of the state to exercise caution when voting in 2023 since Makinde and his team had allegedly packaged bogus and “deceitful record of achievements” with the intention of utilising it as campaign literature and misleading the public, including the helpless electorate.
Truly, in the last three months, governance in Oyo State has been at a standstill due to Makinde’s incessant and frequent travels. At the slightest opportunity, he would jump into the aircraft with Wike to hold meetings locally and internationally.
If they are not in Port Harcourt, they are in Turkey, London, Spain and other parts of Europe for many gang-up meetings on how to sack the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu or work against the party in 2023. While he does this, the state suffers, especially with the kind of government structure in Nigeria.
The most ridiculous part is that he has gone to Rivers State twice or more times to inaugurate projects executed by Wike but has not invited the Rivers State to do same in his state. What this means is that he has nothing to show as performance. While Wike is busy junketing the globe, he is frequently inaugurating and flagging off projects in his state. But the same cannot be said of Makinde and many of his colleague-governors involved in this foreign jamboree.
For a state like Oyo that has security and infrastructural challenges, one would think that Makinde would always sit back to find solutions, but instead, he enjoys flying around and allows his people to continue to suffer.
Most importantly, is that while Wike is not seeking any re-election in 2023, Makinde wants a second term and needs to be strategising on how to over-power the APC. He needs to be reminded how he suffered before he became governor in 2019.
