Most People Hailing Makinde Will Leave Him, Oppose His Guber Candidate Before December — Adebayo, Ex-Oyo AG

A senior advocate and former Commisioner for Justice in Oyo state, Adebayo Mutalubi Ojo, has revealed that most people hailing Governor ‘Seyi Makinde, were waiting for the appropriate time to dump him.

According to the Ibadan-born ex-attorney general, by December of 2026, many of them would come out openly to oppose Bimbo Adekanmbi, who was selected by the governor as his preferred choice for the 2027 governorship election.

He said Makinde’s popularity is his greatest strength and asset. “And it’s also his greatest albatross. So, because the man will inherit both the asset and ability. Bimbo will inherit Makinde’s enemies too because
They are siamese twins.  It would have been otherwise if Governor Makinde had allowed the candidate of his party to emerge through a transparent,
free and fair primaries.”

Speaking on the latest edition of OpenForum360, a political podcast in Ibadan, the state capital, Adebayo noted that unlike in the All Progressives Congress, APC where people are speaking out about the crisis, “a lot of people who are with Gov. Makinde are just deceiving the governor. They are marking their times. Believe me, by December, you will see what will happen. Most of them will leave him. And they will come out to oppose his candidate openly. You see, in APC, they are talking.
They are forcing out their opposition. That’s why they’ve set up a committee which is trying to
reconcile them. It is led by Senator Femi Lanlehin. Former minister Adebayo Adelabu may not be speaking but they know he’s not happy. Senator Buhari is also there. But nobody in the Allied People’s Movement, APM, and the government is voicing out his/her grievances except those who are courageous enough to say no, I can’t stand it. Only people like Comrade Bayo Titilola-Sodo, Hon. Babs Oduyoye and former police commissioner Fatai Owoseni are few who have saidno, you can’t just write rough results on us and treat us any way you like.

“But some people will say, no, I will tag along with him. Till the end. And likewise, some people did it in Osun. They tagged along with APC. And we all saw the results.
So likewise, a lot of them are in APM today. They are just pretending. When they see their candidate, they say ‘incoming’. But they are deceiving him. Bimbo is my good brother and my friend. They are deceiving him.

“I can’t be mentioning names. I know them. I know you know what is happening. They are deceiving him. There are lot of intrigues in politics. It’s not a straightforward enterprise. They are not playing. They deceive a lot. They deceive themselves a lot in politics,” he said.

Decrying the politics of bitterness, he said the deliberate efforts to punish the people of Ona-Ara because of Gbonka Olubadan, Dotun Sanusi was not good.

“He has done well. His businesses are here. He’s my friend. We are childhood friends. And I know that something happened recently. They said an event was supposed to hold at Ilaji Resort. And that it was called off because of the state of the road. How do you think that would make him feel? If you remember,
there was a time I wrote about Ilaji Resort. That my piece trended and went viral. So a friend who worked with UNILAG asked the Registrar to call
me that they would like to have a retreat at Ilaji Resort. He asked me to link them with those in charge. And I linked the Registrar with him. They sent
some people to come have assessment of the facilities.
They were satisfied. But they ruled it out because of the bad state of the road. So because of that, they couldn’t bring that retreat to Ilaji Resort. That was last year.
So I’m not surprised, again, when the function was called off. But what can we do? This man has done so much for your state. He should not be suffering
these kinds of losses. The government has done that deliberately.How? The government wants to frustrate his business. They are friends, yes. But the governor believes Dotun is making friends with some of his
political enemies. You can’t decide my friends for me. If you are fighting with Mr. and we are friends, you don’t expect me to join you in him? Of course. I should be able to choose my own friends, you know, because if at
the end of the day you make friends… Where would that leave you? Where would that leave our relationship. Let me give you an instance. My friend, my brother, Honourable Niyi Farinto and governor— there was this rift between them. If some people had pitched tent because Makinde was having issue with Farinto, where would they be today when all of a sudden, the governor went to visit Farinto. That visit was an unusual visit.
Unusual visit! You get my point? So what would those people do? We then now say they are now
friends of Farinto too. Farinto would look at them, you are unserious. You are not my true friends.
You only came to me because the governor has made peace with me. So that’s just it.

“Yes. We should not try to politicise it. We must not politicise issue of development. Look at the number of people that are working at Ilaji Resorts. I’m going to look at developments there. What Ilaji was able to do in an unallocated government area, even the allocated government, over the years of its existence, has not been able to do that. So Ilaji Resorts has put Akanran on the world map. You know we now have Ilaji in Rwanda and in Spain. I went with him about three weeks ago to inspect the construction ongoing there. Very massive. The staff there are paying income tax to the state government and it has helped in taking some people out of employment market. There’s football academy there. And a lot of other things there.
This is somebody who has invested so much in rural education in that area. You know, for several years, the entire Ona-Ara from Olorunsogo up to Akanran, did not have electricity. Yes. Because they were not connected to national grid. It was Dotun who single-handedly paid for it, paid to IBEDC, to ensure that the light was restored. And even initially, he was the one who did the road. And this one was on the road. And that is the way. That’s what he does. Even if you go to Elebu, where he located ICAST (Ibadan School of Arts, Science and Technology), he was the one that constructed the road and a lot of other things there. So for God’s sake, I’m appealing and I’m begging Governor Makinde to please put politics aside. It is in the interest of the state.”

Adebayo also appealed to the federal government to come to the aids of the people of the area as it is even a federal road. “But when we talk of federal, do we have federal citizens? Do we have federal citizens? But it’s a
federal road. Because it links us with Ogun State via Ijebu border and what have you. You see, up to Olunloyo, the road has been done before it was abandoned. Let us continue it and set politics aside. Issue of development should never be
politicised. It should not. It should not. And thank you very much.