Oyo APM: Seyi Makinde And The Typical Tales Of Kasala | Minkail Olaitan

In his last interview with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels, former Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose threw a proverbial tantrum. He said, “Seyi Makinde ti ta Ile Osha, Oju e de Mari”—Seyi Makinde has sold the shrine; he shall face the consequences. Many squeezed the line into comedy and laughed it away.

Fayose’s eyes, however, are loaded with the kind of experience that can project the direction a political wagon is headed. Despite facts lying plainly all around, many still choose to occlude their scrutinising eyes. They continue to call the Governor the messiah and the kingmaker of Adekanmbi, pumping him and projecting an upward journey where gravitational force is absent.

Politics, everywhere, rests on equilibrium. The systems and underlying structures may differ, but once the balance is offset, the consequences do not negotiate. They arrive. For nearly eight years, Governor Seyi Makinde’s leadership rod has been unsparing; striking traditional institutions with unrelenting pressure, discriminating against composite towns outside the preferred centre, and throwing pieces of carrot only to those who regard him as leader. Former Governor Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala saw the tendency early: the risk of an inadvisable ideologue who would not be advised.

As the administration reaches its final lap, the grievances inside the camp have festered. The promised nirvana has rolled over into renumeration available only if the preferred puppet is crowned. The craftiness of these years will be recorded as something the state will recognise— and flee from—the next time a similar pattern appears.

When APM emerged from the ruins of the PDP through Makinde’s orchestration, some assumed it was an attempt to salvage the party’s face in Oyo. The clearer agenda was to bypass structures that could still call the Governor to account. He once declared, in one of his campaign speeches, “APM is the platform, PDP is the structure.” To some it sounded like a quiet signal of coalition. In practice, he rejected the structure because his presidential ambition could not queue comfortably inside the PDP. He pulled out not primarily because of internal fracture, but because of calculation. He wanted to eat his cake in APM and still have it in the old house.

In recent days, a light of conscious reflection appears to have hit the camp, leaving many associates with no other choice than to step away from the rod.

Prominent among them:
– Otunba Segun Ogunwuyi, Chief of Staff (resigned 12 October 2026; reports linked the exit to the succession choice of Adekanmbi).
– Hon. Ayobami Oluwaseun Ojo, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning (resigned 2 November 2026).
– Hon. Simeon Adegbola Oyeleke, Special Adviser on Budget and Economic Planning (resigned the same day).
– Kabiru Salami, Executive Assistant on Security Coordination.
– Tara Adefope, Director-General of the Due Process Office.
– Fatai Owoseni, Special Adviser on Security.
– Hon. Peter Oyetunji, two-term lawmaker, who formally resigned from APM citing years of neglect.
– Comrade Bayo Titilola-Sodo, Special Adviser on Labour Matters.
– Plus board and commission members across TESCOM, SUBEB, OYSIEC and polytechnic governing councils.
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Beyond the named appointees, more than 200 former councillors who served between 2021 and 2024, led by Hon. Muili Kazeem Arowodana, have dumped APM for the APC, citing hijacked local-government allocations, withheld severance, and the succession arrangement. Over 1,000 members in Oluyole, led by Hon. Mustapha Kazeem (“Oba Oluyole”), did the same, describing APM as a private estate.

The speed at which Oyo APM and Governor Makinde are losing men can only be properly described in Nigerian Pidgin, and with one word: kasala. It has burst. And this appears to be merely the beginning of what Fayose said would befall anyone who sells the shrine.
The equilibrium was always delicate.

Once the rod became the only instrument and the succession the only remaining promise, the structure began to walk. The shrine was sold. The consequences are no longer proverbial. They are arriving with resignation letters and defection lists.
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Minkail Olaitan is a graduate of History and International Studies, an author and creative writer. Contact him via Gmail: olaitanminkail@gmail.com