A few hours ago, I stumbled upon an interview granted by Governor Seyi Makinde in 2023. The interview was conducted by Edmund Obilo on a popular Radio station in Ibadan here and specifically, the interview was conducted on the Thursday preceding the 2023 gubernatorial election.
I agree completely, the social media is a beast. Very unforgiving. After watching the Facebook video of the interview, memories were aroused within me and I asked myself, how could all of us have forgotten this very important event?
Before I proceed with the contents of the interview and why I am revisiting the statements made by the Governor, I would like to touch on some points I am able to make out from another interview conducted by Ajibola Akinyefa in a recent podcast.
I watched part of the interview sessions he had with the Reverend of the First Baptist Church, Yawota, in Oriire Local Government, some of the rescued victims and a wife of one of the men who were allegedly killed by improvised explosive devices ( IED) while searching for the abducted victims.
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According to the Reverend, the Pupils of the Baptist School at Yawota are yet to resume classes due to the fear of a repeat attack and the absence of Security personnel at Yawota.
The Reverend went further to clarify that there are Soldiers at Esinele but no Security personnel at Yawota.
A widow of the late Adigun Shuaib also made a heartbreaking revelation. She said she has received no assistance from Government up till today, even though, her husband was killed by an IED when he joined the search party for the rescue of the victims.
Now, I ask, does the Government of Oyo state require the setting up of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry before ensuring that the Pupils of the Baptist School at Yawota get back to their classrooms?
Does the Government require the Judicial Commission of Inquiry to recommend to Government that the widow of the late Adigun Shuaib, who lost his life during the search for the victims needs to be supported?
I must give kudos to Mr. Ajibola Akinyefa for opening our eyes to these hidden truths.
I hope Governor Seyi Makinde is still not considering the responsibilities of providing security around schools in Yawota Community as that of the Federal Government. Or, is he?
I also hope that he is not waiting to push the blames for the predicaments of the widow of the late Adigun Shuaib on the Federal Government?
I think the Oyo state Government should have deployed more energy on how the rescued Pupils would be back in the classrooms and how the loved ones of those who lost their lives in the circumstances under which the late Adigun Shuaib lost his life, would be taken care of.
Instead of doing that, Governor Seyi Makinde has chosen to concentrate government energy on the setting up of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry!
Back to Governor Makinde’s interview of 2023.
We are a people who easily forget, what, ordinarily shouldn’t have ever been forgotten.
Governor Makinde, in that interview, which centered around the altercation between him and the All Progressives Congress, APC gubernatorial candidate at the time, Teslim Folarin, said a lot of things which would later be terribly contradicted by himself, through actions and comments.
Sadly, no one seems to care about looking backwards and juxtaposing what he said in 2023 against his actions thereafter.
Unfortunately and as attested to by Edmund Obilo himself, the reckless and obviously, baseless accusations he raised against the APC gubernatorial candidate during that debate eventually became one of the sucker punches that sealed the fate of the APC and Its gubernatorial candidate in 2023.
I will not be reproducing in totality, the contents of that interview, I will just outline the facts.
At the 2023 gubernatorial debate, an altercation aroused between Senator Teslim Folarin, who was the then gubernatorial candidate of the APC and Governor Seyi Makinde, who was candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP at the time.
The disagreement started because Folarin referred to Mukaila Auxiliary as an ex-convict but Governor Makinde would have none of that.
He became furious and started talking about the late Elewe-Omo, a Transport Union Leader who was killed around 2010.
He said he had a case file where the then APC candidate was fingered as a suspect in the death of Elewe-Omo.
Folarin challenged Makinde to take the file to court if Makinde was so sure of his facts.
I must say here that my immediate reaction to the attitude of Governor Seyi Makinde back then was that of bewilderment.
I was bewildered at the time and still now, because, in actual facts, there was nothing for Governor Seyi Makinde to be angry about.
You need to ask yourself. Is Mukaila Auxiliary an ex-convict? The answer is a resounding yes.
The fellow was sentenced to prison and he served his term and it was after serving his term in prison that Governor Makinde ‘recruited’ him to serve as his ‘ security ‘ , according to Mukaila Auxiliary, in an interview he granted much later.
So, why was Governor Makinde so livid just because Folarin called Mukaila Auxiliary exactly what he is?
The only reason I could think of is the fact that Governor Makinde himself knew that it was morally wrong of him to have appointed an ex-convict to head a system which is responsible for collecting revenues on behalf of government and he got away from the real issues on that day, partly because people like Edmund Obilo, who also acted as one of the anchor of the program, refused or neglected to ask Governor Makinde the real questions he eventually asked him in the studio some days later.
At the point Folarin raised that issue, it ought to have become a serious issue for the debate but it didn’t!
The event that followed, even, between Governor Seyi Makinde and Mukaila Auxiliary, would later confirm that the Governor of Oyo state is hypocritical in his handling of the Mukaila Auxiliary issue.
I have to say, that, no matter how you look at it, Edmund still deserves credit for the way he handled the interview session in focus, even though, I am of the very strong opinion that he could have raised the issues he raised in the studio, while the debate was on, a few days before.
If you listen to Governor Seyi Makinde carefully, during the interview, you would discover that he just hit Teslim Folarin below the belt. That was all.
Edmund Obilo specifically asked him to tell the public exactly what was in the file he claimed was in his possession and he was struggling to make a sense about the allegations he made a couple of days before.
The only thing he said was, ” if you are leaving in a glass house, you don’t throw stones”.
I was and I am still shocked to see that Governor Makinde was drawing a similarity between an ex-convict and at the worst, a suspect!
Where are the similarities?
I am also surprised that Governor Makinde pretended to believe in the sanctity of human life because he kept referring to the death of Elewe-Omo as ‘ a precious life lost’. Yes, every lives lost are precious. They should be.
However, before that interview, in 2021, the same Mukaila Auxiliary who Governor Seyi Makinde was throwing caution to the wind to defend in 2023, led PDP thugs to Eruwa during the Local Government election and in the course of the violence he caused, four innocent lives were lost.
Are those lives not precious?
Before he granted that interview, the violence in Igangan, Ibarapa North Local Government had taken place.
Auxiliary was also fingered and Auxiliary himself attested to that violence in an interview he granted later.
Lives were lost in the violence. Several innocent lives. Are those lives also not precious?
The interesting part of all of these is that the same Mukaila Auxiliary has been clamped in detention for about a year now by Governor Seyi Makinde and one of the charges he is facing has to do with the alleged murder of a gentleman named Rahman at Iwo Road!
Auxiliary fell out with Governor Seyi Makinde and Seye Famojuro and when he began to talk too much, he was arrested and clamped in detention.
Imagine that! The same Auxiliary Governor Seyi Makinde was fuming with anger while he was defending him against Teslim Folarin.
I believe that the video of that interview was divinely brought to my attention for specific reasons.
Officially, campaign for the presidential election has commenced on Wednesday.
Governor Seyi Makinde is also a presidential candidate and I believe these are the kind of questions we should be asking him.
His association with Mukaila Auxiliary calls his integrity to serious questioning.
Auxiliary ought to have been in hibernation by the time he and Seye Famojuro contracted him to join their campaign as part of their ‘ security ‘, because, neither of them have denied the fact that they invited Auxiliary to join with them.
Most importantly, they knew that the fellow just completed a prison term, convicted for murder related offences by the time they approached him to work for them.
The Governor can not claim ignorance about the unfortunate violence that resulted in the deaths of innocent people both at Eruwa in 2021 and Igangan in 2023.
Governor Seyi Makinde also knew that Auxiliary is an ex-convict when he appointed him to head the Park Management System, PMS in Oyo state.
If Governor Seyi Makinde escaped from being put on the spot in 2023, he should be preparing himself for the hot seat in 2027.
He has a lot of explanations to offer with respect to Mukaila Auxiliary.
Sola Abegunde.
