Governor Seyi Makinde’s Stockholm Colony || By Sola Abegunde

At this point, I don’t know how you would want to defend some of Governor Seyi Makinde’s policies and actions and you won’t appear like someone who needs help. ( Alamodi).

There is one interesting fellow, a supporter of the Governor, who used to respond to my publications on a Whatsapp platform and in concluding his wharp thoughts he would say he is vibrating.

The other time, I asked him if the constant vibration has not been negatively affecting him and I advised him to take care of himself.

A couple of days ago, I started wondering, if you were aggressive as an opposition and you got into Government and your method is still aggression, then you have to examine yourself.

Governor Makinde’s emergence as a political force has never been grounded on strength built on logic and intellect.

The Governor of Oyo state could at best be described as a waive rider. He rode to power first on momentum and on the second occasion, on betrayal and momentum.

For example, what were the intellectual and extraordinary materials put on the table by him in 2019 beyond, ” I will be exporting maize to Botswana”. ” I will be paying salaries on the 25th of every month” and the likes? That is why Botswana never materialized.

There was a wave. There was a momentum. The only missing link was a figure, with the charisma and someone respected enough to organize the wave of massive discontents against the Government of the day and former Governor, Senator Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja filled that gap perfectly.

In 2023, Governor Makinde betrayed his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the presidential candidate of the PDP and even, candidates nominated by him in a survival battle.

He joined the G-5 and negotiated a second term for himself.

Only the mischievous ones would fault these facts.

So, from this background, one should not be surprised if Governor Seyi Makinde and his supporters are perpetually stuck in the opposition mode.

One should not be surprised if the only language they can speak is aggression.

I have to give it to him. The Governor is aware of his limitations. He knows that in the absence of intellect, you require an Army of mediocre and he is richly blessed in that regard.

He has created a Stockholm Colony for himself where the caged victims have become deaf and dumb to reason. They lack the capacity to engage diplomatically and intellectually, but what they lack in intellect and diplomacy, they make up for in in violence, noise and aggression.

I have come across the Governor’s Data boys on several platforms. What a chaotic lot!

Unfortunately for them, some of us have identified their weak points and we will explore it to advantage in the interest of the public.

I will use this opportunity to respond to certain questions and arguments of Governor Seyi Makinde’s Data boys regarding some issues I raised during my Radio engagements over the last weekend.

I had the opportunity of exposing Governor Makinde further, on the futility of setting up of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the abduction and rescue operation of the Teachers and Pupils of Oriire. ( I am aware that the Governor has been frantically trying to change the narratives, attempting to play down his initial comments about the rescue operation, but, in the absence of a withdrawal of that comment, I will personally consider his allegations to still be alive).

Apart from the fact that the Commission would be highly restricted in the performance of its duties due to Constitutional provisions and jurisdictional issues, the timing of the setting up of the Commission, is with due respect, illogical.

At the risk of repeating myself and deliberately so, because a particular caller on a program I featured on Saturday raised the issue. He was of the opinion that if Security Agencies failed to appear before the Commission of Inquiry, then, it follows that they are complicit as suspected.

This is the exact confusion Governor Makinde is targeting but he will not succeed.

There is no doubt that the Commission lacks the authority to compel the appearances of Security Agencies and I am sure that Governor Makinde is aware of this ab initio.

I would not also be surprised if the Commission, knowing these facts fully well, still extends invitations to them, in spite of the facts that it could not compel their appearances.

I will put the pieces together. If this were to be a Chess game. In Governor Makinde’s shoes, I will most likely do the same thing. Invite the Security Agencies. If they fail to appear, use that failure of their appearance to support your baseless suspicion and confuse the gullible ones.

Now there is this question. At this point, just a few weeks after the incident, when some of the Bandits involved is assumed to still be at large, could any responsible Security Agency takes a step that could jeopardize investigation and further operations? The answer is a capital no and Governor Makinde knows but he must build a traffic.

There was another caller who said that one of the Teachers who spoke to the Press revealed that they were not aware of any rescue operation by the Security Agencies and that the Bandits just asked them to go!

Imagine that! What a myopic way to think. If you want to follow such a senseless conclusion, then, it means the Bandits just left wherever they came from, to organize a 56 days circus at Oriire and in the process, they beheaded a Teacher, killed another one and after that, they said, oh, we’ve had enough. You guys can go.

To that caller, he was defending Governor Seyi Makinde but he was actually advertising his stupidity.

I don’t blame him. This is exactly what Governor Seyi Makinde is targeting, however, it could take us time and energy, but we will not allow him to succeed.

The Commission of Inquiry will be running on public funds and it is our duty to expose the shenanigans behind the conceiving of the idea.

It is also our duty to let the public know, beforehand, what the genuine intentions of the Governor are. He knows that the Commission can not work effectively, but he must ensure that president Bola Ahmed Tinubu looks bad in the eyes of the public, while he is the good guy, who have nothing to hide.

There was also a caller who said that it was the president who ought to have set up the Commission of Inquiry and I asked myself, why would the president do that?

It is Governor Seyi Makinde who said he has suspicion about the abduction and the rescue operation. He is the one who is under obligation to proof his allegations.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had a duty to rescue the abducted victims and to the Glory of God Almighty, he has discharged that duty.

If Governor Makinde is unhappy because the president was successful in discharging a Constitutional responsibility, he is free to continue on a wild goose chase and we will wish him luck.

I don’t know why anyone should even be taking Governor Makinde serious about these whole thing.

Has he not been crying wolf from the beginning?

When those Teachers and Pupils were abducted. He said it happened a day after he declared his presidential ambition.

When they were rescued, he repeated the same sentiments.

There was even a funny fellow who was saying that no Bandit was neutralized and he asked if anyone saw their corpses. I answered the fellow by asking if he was interested in eating them.

I have kept saying it, it does appear like Governor Seyi Makinde knows something about the Oriire abduction which most of us don’t know.

What is stopping him from saying what he knows, if he is sure of his facts?

He has called on the United Nations and other International Bodies to investigate the circumstances surrounding the abduction and the rescue operation, even though, he isn’t bold enough to put his concerns on paper.

It is all politics.

Now, he is resorting to a Judicial Commission of Inquiry that lacks the Constitutional powers to compel the participation of Security Agencies.

If you remove the Security Agencies from the activities of the Panel, what is left?

I am even wondering, why is Governor Seyi Makinde changing gear suddenly?

From the start, you said it is not your responsibility to secure the people of Oyo state. Now, you want a Panel of Inquiry that will advise you on how we could prevent future occurrence! Has it suddenly become your duty to secure Oyo state?

No matter how perfectly you thought you arranged a mischief, there will always be loopholes.

Instead of the Governor to immediately commence the perimeter fencing of public schools in rural and isolated areas across the state, he is chasing shadows. At least, doing that doesn’t require you to set up a Commission of Inquiry.

I must also say this. Now, Governor Makinde has taken delivery of the surveillance Aircrafts, though, behind schedule, but they are here. So, what next?

I hope they’re not just going to sit somewhere, idle, while we keep arguing back and forth about the Judicial Commission of Inquiry?

When will work commence on the Airstrip at Igbeti? When are we going to be seeing the Aircrafts at work? Or, they will just sit somewhere and we will keep paying for the hangar and maintenance?

I have been seeing a lot of reactions from appropriate quarters regarding the prices of the surveillance Aircrafts. I am still doing my investigation because we will call Governor Seyi Makinde to serious questioning over the prices of the Aircrafts he has procured with public funds and when we begin to query him, the inhabitants of his Stockholm Colony can go and hug a transformer.

Now, I have to repeat it, the activities of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry would be funded with public funds. At least, Governor Seyi Makinde is not generous enough to fund such from his private pocket.

How much is budgeted for the exercise? For a Government that spent hundreds of millions of Naira on the installation of Adegbola as the Eleruwa, a Government that has been alleged of spending over a billion Naira to crown Obas in absentia, these homongus amounts of money are mere figures, but these figures are frightening to the ordinary man.

We will want to know how much of public funds are being committed to this exercise which is bound to produce no extraordinary results.

Sola Abegunde.