Oyo people, hear word o.
Our once-hopeful, Mr. Technocratic & “Presidential Material”, Governor Seyi Makinde, has decided to drop a whopping ₦63 billion—almost 10% of the 2025 state budget—on renovating Agodi Government House. Yes, that same Government House nobody even lives in, at least not since some point during the thugs-own-the-State years of Alao Akala.
Governor Seyi Makinde—yes, the one many of us believed had sense, structure, and spreadsheet—has announced plans to spend ₦63 billion, a clean nearly 10% of the entire Oyo State 2025 budget, to renovate the Agodi Government House.
I wish I was joking. I wish this was a Nollywood plot twist. But no—this is our reality, written in the ink of madness.
Imagine borrowing ₦63 million to fix your guest loo while your kitchen’s leaking sewage—makes no sense, right? But here we are, watching our public funds transform into bizarre architectural cocaine.
And it’s not like Makinde is clueless—no, he’s dancing the two-step with his buddy, Wike, Mr. “Project-Inflate-First”—the very same friend who plushes up Abuja’s budget till even the FCT fence posts glow in gold.
So now Oyo’s got its own version of “Project Mayoral Château,” courtesy of two pals busy stuffing their pockets.
It’s like they’re shouting, “Let’s fix a building nobody lives in!” in a state where kids still learn under trees, where public hospitals rely on “try your luck” generators, where many roads double as moon craters. Seyi wants to sink a tithe of the budget into aesthetics right under our nose. And somehow, he expects applause?
The stench of inflated contracts is rising, and it smells suspiciously like the cologne of Nyesom Wike—his longtime ally, now Minister of the FCT, and the founding father of “Audio Budget Governance.” Wike has practically turned Abuja into a construction site of questionable pricing. Now his protégé in Oyo has joined the game, possibly trying to beat the master at his own sport: “Project Padding and Monumental Misplacement.”
It’s disappointing. Deeply. Because some of us rooted for Makinde. We believed he’d do things differently. He came in with the vibe of a technocrat. Calm, calculated, development-minded. But now, he’s mutating into the very thing he once stood apart from. Still, given the company he keeps—Wike and his circus of budget clowns—maybe we shouldn’t be too shocked. Birds of a feather steal budgets together.
Let’s get real: Not every renovation needs to be Chanel-esque. Rwanda’s buying affordable houses for teachers, not revamping mayors’ lounge rooms into mini Buckingham Palace. The UK might refurbish historical buildings—but they cart out tiny fractions of their budget, with full transparency.
Where’s our transparency, Makinde? Where are the architectural plans? The itemized cost breakdowns? The list of contractors, their biddings, their pedigree—and their middlemen?
This is beyond irresponsible—it’s fiscal buffoonery. ₦63 billion? To do what? Repaint the walls with liquid gold? Install diamond door handles? Build an underground spa for VIP mosquitoes?
Even if Beyoncé was performing daily and Obama was guest-hosting dinner, the numbers don’t add up. And if they somehow do, show us. Let’s see the project details, the architectural breakdown, the contractor names.
Let professional bodies—engineers, QS, architects—scrutinise this madness. Don’t feed us another inflated joke and call it governance.
Because at this point, what Makinde is doing is less of governance and more of state-funded set design. He’s spending our commonwealth to build an illusion—something shiny and impressive from the outside, but hollow and useless inside.
Confirm, Oyo professionals: Can ₦63 billion even be justified for this kind of facelift? Because right now, all we’re seeing is a dark comedy where public money disappears into corridors of power.
To be clear, I wanted to believe in Makinde. I stood by him, expecting he’d dodge the usual pitfalls. But his cozy buddy-cordon with Wike has clearly circled the wagons around a lifelong fault: inflated projects, murky budgets, and laughable scapegoats. You dance with the devil, you get a permanent shadow—this is Makinde’s fiscal silhouette.
Makinde’s current playbook is starting to feel eerily familiar—like a Bernie Madoff Ponzi rerun, just with more kaftan and well starched hats, and less Wall Street. Madoff lured people in with promises of steady returns, only to deliver smoke, mirrors, and heartbreak.
Makinde, in his own version of “governance returns,” sold us the gospel of technocracy, accountability, and people-first progress. But now, with this ₦63 billion extravaganza on a building no one sleeps in, it’s beginning to feel like Oyo bought into a political Ponzi scheme—high expectations, low dividends, and a renovation project that’s more about optics than outcomes.
Madoff defrauded investors; Makinde, it seems, is defrauding hope.
Oyo people, this is our cue: Time to spreadeagle the budget, demand full transparency, and clapback at any rubber-stamp legislature that waves this off. Makinde is in his final term—let’s ensure this isn’t his grand retirement raid.
We must not fold our arms. The man is in his final term—this is the most dangerous time in any governor’s career. It’s when they believe they’re free to loot without consequence. But that is only true if we let them.
We must ask questions, demand answers, interrogate the books. We must not be distracted by ribbon-cuttings and shiny walls. This is our money, our future, and our right to hold power accountable.
Because here’s the truth: ₦63 billion isn’t a building project—it’s a spectacle. A government-house dark joke. And my feverish hope? That Oyo state citizens stand up, shine light in these dusty corners, and refuse to let public funds be theater instead of reality.
Who needs a sprawling edifice to house a Governor and his retinue of crumbs-hugging aides? If you must, why not fix just the lodge and a few other buildings that are necessary for hosting state events (not like we don’t even have facilities right now, at least he has not been hosting events on trees for the past 6 years) and either auction the rest or convert them into public use?
As is with the Federal Government led by Pablo, this is a case of “f’ìrì n’ídìí òké l’ókè, alo k’ólóhun k’ígbe n’ísàlè (a robber at the top, a pilferer just below him).
Makinde might have entered Agodi as a breath of fresh air, but if this ₦63 billion madness goes through without resistance, he will leave as just another political Madoff—smiling, waving, and walking away from a con he pulled in broad daylight.
And the joke? It’ll be on us.
Let’s hold him to account. After all, this isn’t dinner theatre—Nigeria’s, and indeed Oyo’s, fate is the ticket sale!
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Hezekiah Akinrinde
25 June 2025
#PastorHez
#SeyiMakinde
#oyostate
