Makinde’s Media Chat And The Can Of Worms

Like the opening of a can of worms, the 28th Executive Governor of Oyo State, His Excellency, Gov Seyi Makinde’s vituperations in a widely televised media chat which held on Tuesday, December 23, 2025 has unsettled the pot and many crawly facts have started emerging. Makinde bared the facts on several deals and agreements between the G5 and the then presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, now the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite being members of the Peoples Democratic Party, and what led to the souring of his relationship with the president.

Many thought the return salvos will wait until the highly anticipated media chat promised by one of the main victims of Makinde’s marksmanship, the Honourable Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Barr Nyesom Wike, whose response is slated for Monday, December 29, 2025, but were nonetheless delighted at the staccato released by the erstwhile Governor of Ekiti State, the irrepressible Ayodele Fayose, as some kind of aperitif.

The main revelation of former governor, Ayo Fayose’s contributions to the melee is the fact that President Bola Tinubu should be given credit where he deserves it and as an illustration, Fayose gave the example of Makinde receiving a staggering sum of N50 billion, from the federal government towards assuaging the pains of the victims of the devastating Bodija explosion, the hapless individuals for which Makinde approved only a paltry N4.5 billion. Makinde had since put the figure at N30 billion.

It is a shame and a disappointment that a supposedly fresh-blooded politician, who is always posturing that he is different from the rest, always harping about ‘trust deficit’ and ‘street credibility’, always blowing his own trumpet as the champion of the people who is speaking and representing their interest in politics and governance, and whose first position of public trust is the exalted governorship of Oyo State, the Pacesetter state and political headquarters of the South West, will so brazenly shortchange the same people and deny the people the benefits of the federal government intervention for victims of the bomb blast.

This however had not come as a surprise to the level headed people of Oyo State, who seeing  beyond Makinde’s grandstanding and manipulative politics, had watched petrified with consternation, as Makinde made the third tier of government, that which is closest to the people and capable of doing them the most good, an appendage of the state government, all on the pretext of a ‘lacuna’ in the legal framework, a lacuna that is well within his capacity to address, but he had not deemed it fit to.