Governor Seyi Makinde was dealt a terrible blow from an unexpected quarter on Wednesday.
The severity of the blow is so massive that it threw the Governor’s camp completely off balance.
Oh! What a clinical sucker punch from Hon. Shittu Ibrahim, the honourable member representing Saki West in the Oyo State House of Assembly.
The gentleman struck even me with awe!
After I read his explosive whistleblowing, where he distanced himself from yet another reckless and illegally approved loan of 300 billion by the Makinde Government, I told myself, “We still have hope.”
For Honourable Shittu, I have this to say:in a world where people no longer care about morals, in a world where people will gladly sell their conscience, integrity and legacy for a pot of soup, you have just laid a foundation for something greater than you can imagine.
You are a hero who will be remembered for time immemorial, and when you and yours look back at today many years from now, your face will beam with a smile of contentment.
The road ahead of you will be bumpy.
The powers and principalities will roar; they will threaten. They will call you names and shake you violently, but I can assure you, you will never be alone in this fight, and you will conquer all foes.
In a normal society, immediately the story broke, it ought to have become headlines and a hot topic on major radio stations and other mass media, but alas! Everywhere went silent.
I am not surprised.
What do you expect?
That he who paid the piper will not dictate the tunes? Impossible.
Instead of latching onto the story and blowing it up in the interests of the public, the media went silent.
Apart from some busybodies who immediately went for the head of Hon. Shittu online, the media waited for the governor’s camp to dictate the narratives, and they almost generally latched onto it.
I am sure that some gluttonous pot-bellied presenters are already lining up purchased ‘finance experts’, ‘public affairs analysts’ and perhaps some compromised high chiefs who will appear on their radio programmes tomorrow, Saturday, to confuse the public with semantics and terminologies.
What an SUV cannot do these days doesn’t seem to exist.
Like I used to do recently, I decided not to rush my opinion concerning the present controversies.
I have since discovered that it is always better to wait for the reaction of the Governor’s camp on issues like this before airing my opinion.
I have read several reactions from individuals, the Oyo State House of Assembly and finally, from the pastor, Dr Sulaimon Olanrewaju, Governor Makinde’s mouthpiece.
Before I proceed to make my opinion known, may I, on a lighter note, say that Olanrewaju now has more than one ‘Beelzebub’ to deal with?
I am sure, judging by his name, ‘Sulaimon’, he must have been a Muslim or related to Islam one way or the other before becoming a pastor.
I do not think it would be difficult for him to find the corresponding Islamic name of Beelzebub in the Quran, and I am sure he would be affixing the name to Hon. Shittu in the coming days.
I have carefully perused the responses from the House of Assembly of Oyo State and the Oyo State Government, and I discovered that both statements are not only weak and feeble, but they are also equally failed attempts to divert from the simple issues Hon. Shittu raised.
What are the issues raised by Hon. Shittu?
The first point raised by Hon. Shittu is that on the 19th of August, 2025, the Oyo State House of Assembly, which is supposed to be observing a six-week recess, purportedly sat to consider and approve a further loan request of 300 billion Naira by the Oyo State Government, and the said loan was perfected on the 26th of August, 2025.
Hon. Shittu distanced himself from such a purported sitting of the House of Assembly.
The first question a reasonable person should ask is whether or not a sitting of the Oyo State House Assembly was actually held within the periods stated by Hon. Shittu.
If it did, what was the purpose of the sitting, and as against his claim of non-involvement, was he actually involved?
Like I said, I have perused the responses of both the Oyo State House of Assembly and the Oyo State Government.
None of the statements denied the fact that a purported sitting of the Oyo State House of Assembly actually held on the occasion highlighted by Hon. Shittu, and neither did any of the statements deny that the loan request of 300 billion Naira was perfected on the 26th of August, 2025.
There is also an agreement by both responses that the purported ‘emergency plenary’ actually considered and approved a loan request by the Oyo State Government totalling 300 billion Naira, though I must admit that Olanrewaju tried to justify and break down the total loan sum, but the subtotal is still 300 billion Naira.
I will come back to Olanrewaju later.
I also see that none of the responses claimed that Hon. Shittu was at the said sitting of the House of Assembly, contrary to his claim.
So, why all these negative pregnancies?
Someone said, ‘You have done so and so at so and so time and place,’ but I’m not involved, and you start hitting your heads on the wall?
I think I know why they have gone into convulsions.
It is very hurtful for Makinde that Hon. Shittu, whose claims about the loan request could not be denied or taken as hearsay, has exposed the Governor and the Oyo State House of Assembly.
Ordinarily, Governor Makinde and Debo Ogundoyin would have wished that the deal was wrapped up in secret.
The severest pain is the fact that the honourable member went ahead to state that he could not comprehend why the governor became obsessed with loans despite the sharp increase in monthly allocations from Abuja.
Oh! That hurts!!
I smelt the anger and frustrations in Olanrewaju’s comments.
He said Shittu could not differentiate between a 75 per cent increase and a 500 per cent increase in monthly allocations.
He even insinuated that Hon. Shittu is one incompetent individual.
Shall I say the truth? Dear Dr Olanrewaju, I have clearly read your response from top to bottom; the incompetent one I see here is your humble self.
Let us agree that Hon. Shittu, perhaps, for reasons known to him, decided to exaggerate by claiming that the monthly inflow of statutory allocations has increased by 500 per cent.
What material did you yourself put forward to defend your claim of a 75 per cent increase?
I would rather believe Shittu because, by virtue of him being a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly, I am tempted to believe that he would have more facts than you, who perhaps rely only on hearsay.
At least, all expenditures of the Oyo State Government must pass before the House of Assembly, and it is likely that Hon. Shittu was able to put one and one together to arrive at the 500 per cent claim.
Dr Olanrewaju, show us the proof, I mean, in concrete terms, that the monthly allocations have increased by just 75 per cent.
President Tinubu has been saying it times without number that monthly allocations to states and local governments have tripled, and up until now I have been asking your principal to either confirm or deny this fact.
Were you people not silent?
If we are to take the position of President Tinubu, which you people have never denied in this debate, how will a tripled monthly allocation amount to just a 75 per cent increase?
Not only that, but I would have expected you to not only say that Hon. Shittu goofed, but I thought you would tell us what Oyo State and the 33 local governments were receiving as monthly allocations before the increase and what we are receiving now.
Not only that, I expected you to tell us how the increase, whatever the percentage, has affected governance.
The funds in question are public funds. So, why couldn’t you and your principal disclose these important facts?
Monthly allocations have increased. Your principal claims that internally generated revenues (IGR) have increased tremendously, yet the debt burden of the state kept increasing, and instead of you providing us with specific and accurate figures that will exonerate your principal, you came out belching confusion.
That is extremely lazy of you.
When Makinde became governor in 2019, he shouted to the rooftops that Oyo State was bedevilled by debts.
Interestingly, the total debt profile of Oyo State as of 2019 stood at about 145 billion Naira, according to Governor Makinde.
I have been asking Governor Makinde to tell us the exact total debt profile of Oyo State all this while, but he has refused to answer, and he will dare not answer.
He himself, I am sure, must be ashamed to mention the figures.
I have read a lot of nonsense online.
I have also seen the lame attempts to label Hon. Shittu as an absentee honourable member by the Oyo State House of Assembly and the government.
For me, these name callings and diversionary tactics are mere afterthoughts and damage control.
Is it now that the Oyo State House of Assembly are just waking up to discover that Hon. Shittu is an absentee representative?
What is more, I think his purported absenteeism should be a source of worry to his constituents rather than the Oyo State Government and the House of Assembly.
I will not waste my time on the weightless narratives that the loan in question is not a fresh request.
Olanrewaju’s explanations in this regard are self-defeatist enough for a reasonable person to decipher.
This is the first time that Governor Makinde would be forced to explain the reasons behind his series of reckless borrowings, and I am not surprised that he is failing woefully to defend himself.
Olanrewaju’s explanations are not only laughable, they are also sickening and unfortunate.
A House of Assembly of a state sat, purportedly on emergency, to consider and approve a sum of 300 billion Naira, which the state will have to pay back with interest, and you have the gall to come out and run a verbal diarrhoea on the whistleblower?
I saw a purported WhatsApp notice of plenary for the controversial sitting from the Majority Leader of the Oyo State House of Assembly.
I would like to quote verbatim, and it reads: “Good morning, distinguished colleagues, there will be an urgent plenary sitting today, Tuesday, August 19th, 2025, by 3:00pm. The meeting is purely to consider some executive requests, majorly the governor’s intention to proceed on his annual leave. Apology for the late notification.”
Let me repeat. I quoted verbatim.
The above is supposed to be the notice sent out to honourable members of the Oyo State House of Assembly with regard to the now purported controversial sitting.
You will note that the notice called for a meeting of the House in the afternoon, by 3 pm of the same day it was sent out.
You will also note that the Oyo State House of Assembly was on a six-week recess at the time, and honourable members might have left the state to enjoy the recess.
So, when they came out to say that Shittu did not attend the plenary, did they say that they gave a rather very short and impossible notice during recess?
You will also see that even though a loan request was to be considered on the day, it was not specifically mentioned in the purported notice of plenary.
The only item mentioned was the intended request for leave by the governor.
It is not the first time the Oyo State House of Assembly has approved loans in a very suspicious and highly condemnable manner under Debo Ogundoyin.
When the history of Oyo State is written, Governor Makinde would not only go down as the one who, perhaps, led Oyo State to ruination through reckless borrowings, but Debo Ogundoyin would also have his place beside him.
History would remember him as the Speaker who presided over a House of Assembly that aided the process.
As a representative of the Ibarapa East Local Government, I do not know what specific project or legacy Debo Ogundoyin would be proud of after his tenure, apart from the abandoned road projects scattered all over the Local Government, the snatching of the Eruwa Farm Settlement from local farmers and the installation of a controversial monarch in Eruwa.
I’ve heard some people say that he also wants to succeed Seyi Makinde, and perhaps that is why he has become the governor’s willing tool.
I wish him well, but he will have to tell us what he has contributed to the soil to warrant him further knocking on the surface.
I opened by talking about the weaver bird.
Governor Makinde has invested so much to ensure that the media is blind to his misdeeds.
He is the only governor that I know who doesn’t hide his intentions about buying over the media.
He loves to spoil them with SUVs, appointments and other material gifts.
You have to concede that he does largely control the media spaces within the state.
Unfortunately for Governor Makinde, his audacious disposition is his undoing.
He doesn’t know how to caution himself.
He declared publicly that he would not sign up for the freedom of the local governments; the media ensured he got away with it.
In fact, the one who asked him that question during the 2023 gubernatorial debate ended up posting a picture of him and the governor less than 48 hours before the election and added the caption, “Seyi Makinde is my man.”
It was also during the debate that he audaciously said that a thief is never satisfied with just one operation! (Eekan kii to Ole), but the media failed to ventilate on that reckless statement, and we have a reckless ‘thief’ on a second operation at our hands.
Before our own eyes, Governor Makinde turned the Agbowo Shopping Complex into the despicable structure it is today.
He built garages with billions of naira.
He erected streetlights with almost 50 billion naira and declared the contract failed after less than two years.
He awarded contracts for the production of exercise books to a crony of his and a placeholder CEO of a popular radio station in Ibadan for outrageous sums of money.
He has been seizing market spaces, government lands and farm settlements at his pleasure.
He condemned the proposed amendment to the Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration Laws by Ajimobi and won his election based on that position in 2019 but came back to embrace the same in 2024.
He rubbished the coalition partners who assisted him to win an election for the first time ever in his political career in 2019 after a series of losses.
Has the media ever taken him up on these matters?
I think as a result of his cocksuredness that the media spaces have been captured, the governor tends to be reckless most times.
Like the weaver bird, the Governor has taken over the media spaces, but his audacious dispositions will not allow him to enjoy the fruits of his investments.
How will the media save him from this unforced error?
Why is it difficult for the Governor to at least give room for the House of Assembly to, at the very least, do something seemingly perfect?
Why the rush?
Or could it be that there are urgent expenses required for the successful hosting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Convention in November?
Or, perhaps, the presidential campaign requires urgent funding?
I know they will come for Hon. Shittu, but I can assure them that the gentleman will not be alone.
Honourable Shittu is my Man of the Year!
Credit:SOLA ABEGUNDE