Allegedly hidden behind Governor Seyi Makinde’s facade of innocence is a steely lethality. This is quite evidenced by how the dangerously taciturn Gov has been claimed to court thuggery as his main strategy in resolving, shockingly, internecine political battles in his party, PDP. Internecine because opposition against him within his party, PDP, state and national, is the more, worse hit by the alleged thuggish intimidations from the Governor.
The first sign that Gov Makinde appears to have a soft spot for thuggish strategies was when he chose to appoint Mr ‘Carry-Shoulder-Upandan’ as the Chairman of Park Management Service. Gov Makinde was not unaware that Mr ‘Shoulder Pad’ had served jail term, having been convicted of crimes of alleged murder and brigandage. It must be noted that Mukaila Lamidi Auxiliary was charged with murder in 2014 and he was subsequently found guilty and was sentenced to a jail term. It’s, therefore, simple logic to deduce that thuggish strategies were what the Gov relies on to sidestep or, worse still, intimidate to submission, those opposing him, having settled for a known ex-convict and manufacturer of brigandage to man Governor Makinde’s cosmetic rebranding and renaming of the Oyo motor union from National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, to Park Management Service, PMS.
It’s a story for another day that Gov Makinde is left to revel in illegality, having usurped the power of local governments to manage parks and collect vehicular revenues. Outcries from the main opposition party, APC, forced Gov Makinde to direct that PMS must be under local governments. Yet, till now, vehicular revenues collected by PMS under the leadership of Mukaila Lamidi land in the coffers of state government. Gov Makinde counts the daily vehicular revenues as part of the State’s IGR while local governments in the State are gasping for financial oxygen that the Governor has wickedly removed to stifle their survival. That’s not even the concern here!
In 2019, during the Kogi governorship contest between Inuwa Wada, PDP, and Yahya Bello, APC, Gov Makinde as the Campaign Chairman of his party was alleged to have led Mercenary Sunday Adeyemo Igboho and the miscreant-members of Oyo PMS led by Mukaila Lamidi Auxiliary, to Kogi State to unleash mayhem so that the election could go in favour of Inuwa Wada who was PDP candidate. Gov Makinde denied taking the fellows to Kogi but in a viral video, Sunday Igboho confirmed that he followed Gov Makinde to Kogi State to ensure that Inuwa Wada won. Igboho stated that he had been a member of the PDP since 1999. The mayhem merchant had forgotten that he was in Accord Party after his PDP romance before the party went comatose. That’s by the way.
In April 2021, during the PDP South West zonal congress in Osogbo, which produced Taofiki Arapaja as the Deputy National Chairman, South West, Gov Makinde was said to have mobilized ten armed hoodlums to the congress to intimidate the faction Fayose and others belonged to out of the congress. Gov Makinde’s faction carried the day allegedly with the help of the armed hoodlums. Ayodele Fayose remarked after the congress that Gov Makinde was more dangerous than he appeared.
Also in July 2021, armed hoodlums said to be loyal to Gov Makinde attacked the Bodija Estate factional Secretariat of the aggrieved PDP members led by Nureni Akanbi, Hazeem Gbolarunmi and Adebisi Olopoeniyan. The Secretariat was vandalised and properties worth millions of naira were destroyed. A leader of the faction, Adebisi Olopoeniyan confirmed that members of the PMS were behind the attacks.
Appearing that the Governor’s alleged penchant to use thuggery to settle political scores was still raging, the miscreant-members of Oyo PMS under the supervision of Chairman Auxiliary were claimed to have stormed Jogor Centre venue of the PDP factional state congress in October 2021. Cars were destroyed and persons were maimed during the internecine attacks.
Again, on 26th January, 2022, about 150 armed hoodlums suspected to be members of Oyo PMS were arrested in Ekiti. They were said to be on their way to disrupt PDP governorship primary which later produced Bisi Komolafe from the Fayose faction. The arrest of the armed hoodlums was said to have dealt the camp of Gov Makinde a blow as Ayodele Fayose played a fatal return match on Gov Makinde over what the latter did to intimidate and ridicule Fayose and his camp at Osogbo zonal congress last year.
A governor is supposed to be a gentleman, decent in deeds and suave in acts. But with the allegations of providing safe havens to thugs, miscreants and hoodlums against Gov Makinde, if true, his alleged addiction to thuggish strategies to cow opposition within or outside his party is sure to defy political rehab. So far, the major opposition party in the State, APC, has not really been at the receiving end of thuggish confrontations from the the present government’s instruments of violence and brigandage except the regular campaign of calumnies against the major opposition party. It’s the party, PDP, that Gov Makinde mans as the leader that’s allegedly suffering from his alleged thuggish confrontations.
Whether the allegations of running government of thuggery against Gov Makinde are true or not, the Gov needs to check his ways and approaches as incidence of thuggery and thuggish confrontations against the aggrieved members of his party at state and national levels, pointing to the fact that Oyo state government cannot be exonerated, is a stain threatening to soil the few remaining yards of Gov Makinde’s white apparel.
