Oyo APC to FFK: We don’t want Gov Makinde in our party

From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

The disclosure was made by the interim publicity secretary of the party in the state, Dr. AbdulAzeez Olatunde, in a chat with journalists in Ibadan, the state capital, on Sunday, in his reaction to the statement made recently by a former Minister of Aviation during the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who defected from PDP to APC last week.

Fani-Kayode, who was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari by the Chairman, Caretaker Committee of the APC, and governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni on Thursday, last week at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, stated that he was instrumental to the exit of three PDP governors to the APC – Dave Umahi (Ebonyi),  Ben Ayade (Cross River) and Bello Matawale (Zamfara). He further said that he would also woo Governors Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, and Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State from PDP to APC.

In his reaction, Olatunde stated: “APC in Oyo State is not disposed to having Makinde because he has a very poor performance. APC has raised the bar of governance in Oyo State beyond the ‘mediocre’ performance of Governor Makinde.

“In over two years, Oyo has nothing to show for having a governor, who is even an Engineer; we see this as very poor. The first project that he started from the scratch is the remodelling of Lekan Salami Stadium at a whooping sum of N5.3billion, which ordinarily shouldn’t have cost up to that amount.

“And because the people of Oyo State are prayer warriors, God answered their prayer by showing the ineptitude performance of the governor with very good rain on the day of the commissioning, which exposed the inadequacies of the project. It’s not even the money he saved. It’s a loan. So, Oyo State will pay back and only God knows for how long. It is the achievement of Governor Ajimobi that he is even leveraging upon.

“It’s funny to us that in three months, he got to office he said he wanted to distribute books that they have produced and we challenged them that if you claimed to have produced this in three months, then do another one in one year. It has been two years now, nothing to show forth.

“A lot of serious state during COVID-19 were building makeshift diagnostic centre and treatment centre, our governor could not build one, rather he decided to use the maternity centre at Olodo which is a legacy of Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

“We don’t want people that have nothing to offer the people of Oyo State in our party. We have scores of better candidates, people that will do Oyo State better than Makinde is doing. No space for him in APC. Fani-Kayode should face his own life, we don’t want him to assist us in Oyo state.”