Honourable Babatunde Oduyoye, the Special Adviser on Strategy and Political Matters to Governor Seyi Makinde, has disclosed that a lot of political Godfathers in Oyo State were not happy when Governor Makinde won the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state.
In an interview with Nigerian Tribune, Oduyoye commented on the Governor’s first-year political developments in the state. When answering the question, why the opposition has, in the last year, been very active in the criticism of the Governor, he started that ” There is a grand design by the opposition to ambush the government of Governor Makinde and it can be fully explained.
During the electioneering, he was highly underrated, he was not given a chance. APC was in power at the state and at the federal level and nobody thought Makinde had a chance.”
“Even a former governor who is a member of the APC boasted that because Governor Makinde has never been a councillor or held any political posts, then it was not his turn yet. But the moment he won the election, the status quo and the powers that be got offended. It was like Obama winning the presidential election in the USA.
With that victory, a lot of people were rested politically, because it was a paradigm shift in the state. It was a dream come true for us to have a generational shift and I have always been an advocate of that.”
Oduyoye reiterated that “with the emergence of Governor Makinde, a lot of the so-called godfathers are not happy. But that development gives hope to the younger ones. Look at how the development has reshaped the politics of the state? We now have a young speaker and some commissioners such as the Commissioner for Youths and Sports and Commissioner for Energy Resources, who are either less than 30 or in their early 30s. Today, Oyo State became a model for other states across the country and this annoys the APC.”
“So, for the PDP candidate to win in Oyo State, it brought attention to the state for members of the opposition in Abuja and Lagos. So, there is a grand design, because of 2023, to undermine the government of Governor Makinde at all costs. The opposition in the state wants to come back into office in 2023. But what has been their strategy? Their strategy has been to find ways of derailing the administration.
It has been that of creating fake news in the media. It has been that of employing and paying e-rats on social media and criticizing without offering any alternative on every single move that the governor has made,” Oduyoye concluded.
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