After spending many years on the outside looking in from the window at the presumed opulence and ease of power, Oyo Governor-Elect Seyi Makinde is finding out the hard way that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. And not just any crown but the crown of Oyo executive, a position that throws him bang into the centre of numerous intrigues and scheming by entrenched political gladiators.
As you read this, Seyi is nursing a giant headache the size of Mount Kilimanjaro. The band of political merry men that united to ensure he triumphed over the outgoing governor Abiodun Ajimobi and his incumbent APC party machinery, has morphed into a committee of vultures. The spoils of war are ready to be shared and they are getting angsty.
The incoming governor has been engaging in a charm offensive, trying to win the people and powerbrokers of the state to his side in order to ensure a smooth transition. Few weeks back he scored big with the youth as he donated Twenty-Five Million Naira for the repair of damaged structures in the University of Ibadan, the state’s pride. Still, the problems he is running linger like an accused patiently awaiting the judge’s summons.
Despite winning on the platform o the PDP, the nature of Oyo is such that a few mainstays still wiled huge control over the state’s political pulse. Wary of offending any party beyond the point of no return, Makinde is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Of course he has to consider the efforts of the stalwarts of the Oyo chapter of the PDP on whose coattails he rode to victory. But not to ignored in the power-sharing equation are former governors Rasheed Ladoja and Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala. The remnants of the once-preeminent Adedibu political structure are also on ground and are not to be underestimated. Then there is the outgoing governor Ajimobi who still angles for a say in Oyo politics despite the ignominious manner he lost his bid for the Senate.
With all these complex calculations to contend with, no wonder Seyi Makinde is getting sleepless nights. As he tries to balance appointments for loyalty with a need to appease the powers that be in the state, his head must be spinning relentlessly from having to consider all the permutations and combinations to appointing his commissioners who will help steer his state policy for the next four years.
