Oyo Gov. Seyi Makinde is nursing the 2023 vice presidential ambition, and he is putting everything in to project himself across the PDP states.
A group identifying itself as the APC-Professionals (APC-P) made the allegation Friday while urging the governor to focus on his state and deliver the good.
According to them, Makinde has spent N7 billion projecting power as far as Niger, Ekiti, and other places in what they called political jamborees.
“Governor Makinde has completely abandoned governance in Oyo State for his quest to extend his political control to the entire South-West, South-South and some states in the North-Central,” said Chief Convener of the APC-P Adekunle Lawal in a statement on Friday.
If the opposition group should be taken seriously, then Makinde’s ambition is misplaced. The PDP is zoning its presidential candidate to the south by 2023, and the same region can’t produce the present and his V.P.
But Makinde could have his own reason for playing the good guy all over the places. Atiku Abubakar, the party’s last presidential candidate in the 2019 election, is still in the race, and preparing as much as possible.
In case the billionaire is able to swing things his way again, and secure the ticket in 2023, the south may then give him his vice president. For that opportunity, Makinde sits pretty well.
But that won’t be easy.
The former voice of the PDP in the southwest, ex-Gov Ayo Fayose s already battling Makinde, a baby governor, for trying to hijack the regional power from him, especially as Makinde intervenes in the Ekiti leadership crisis between Fayose and Sen Biodun Olujimi.
The governor hasn’t responded officially to the allegation.