Seyi Makinde: Nigerians will Shock Politicians, Elites in 2027

Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, last week held a media interaction in Ibadan, with selected media professionals from across the country.  Chuks Okocha, who monitored the event, brings excerpts

Your Excellency, you said politics is a game but governance is not. But politics is a sort of party governance. So how do you ensure that governance and party functions are separated, bearing in mind some of the things that have been happening in the PDP in recent years?

I’ll start by saying that we’ve tried several constitutions, you know. We started with the parliamentary system, and then we went to the presidential, right? When you’re seeking votes, you know, you go out, engage with the people, you can promise them heaven and earth, right? But if you’re given the opportunity to serve the people, you have to deliver; and you have to deliver not only to the people of your own party. We engage at the federal level and say, look, we think you should do this for the states. And then we hear things like, oh no, you cannot empower your enemy or your competitor. With what?

Yes, we’ll play the game. While we’re campaigning, you will say all sorts of things, you know, about the other parties. You try to sell your own programmes and policies. But once it comes to governance the game stops because destinies are involved, even generations yet unborn can be impacted. I had a meeting with the cabinet secretary in Kenya. That is the equivalent of, maybe SGF in Nigeria, the number three citizen out there. He said to me while we were in his office watching the drama in Gaza between Israeli and the Palestinians. And then he said, look, this could have actually been Kenya. Because when they were looking for land to create the state of Israel, Kenya was actually considered. And that bill was defeated by one vote in parliament. So some of the things we do in governance, we may think, oh, ok, this is just easy. But generations yet unborn are impacted.

If you know my political trajectory, this is my very first job in the public sector. And I got the job when I was 51. So what happened to me between zero and 51? And I’ll be 58 on Christmas day. So what happened to me between zero and 51? I operated in the private sector. And I operated not only in Nigeria, but, you know, across different continents. I believe once prayers have been answered – because nobody can get anything without God giving it to that individual. And even leadership, you cannot become a leader by yourself, it is because God has given that position to you. And he will give people the kind of leaders they deserve at any particular time. In the Bible, God allowed a wicked king to be enthroned because at that particular time, God decided that that is the kind of king the people deserved. But that is usually not the end of the story.

So I will say that in Nigeria today, we have to rise above partisanship. This may go straight into the issue within PDP. I say everybody has defected and I’m saying I’m not moved because the people that negotiated Nigeria, they have two major things that were in there, in that negotiation. First, federalism. That’s why they call us the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Two, multi-party democracy. That is why, upon independence, you had Action Group, you had Northern People’s Congress, you had NEPU, you had NCNC. You understand? At independence, it was a multi-party democracy. So, now you are moving the country towards a one-party state. It won’t work. I was in Ebonyi State recently and they brought Kola to me and said, in Igbo land, if you are receiving a big visitor, this is how you do it. I said, well, Kolanuts is grown in the west, eaten in the north, and literally worshiped in the east. So you have different nations, different cultures within the nation called Nigeria.

And the people who negotiated our independence felt that it was okay to have unity in that diversity, it has to be a federal arrangement. If you move the country towards a one-party state, what happens the day you require a multi-party or bipartisan approach to issues? Who are you going to call? The day you move the country towards a one-party state, you remember what happened with the Arab Spring. Once people don’t have leadership, they will find leaders by all means. So we better get our acts together as political leaders in this country. That will be my own approach to your question.

Talking about PDP, I know there was a time you were in the G5, and that G5 actually supported the president. What happened concerning your relationship between the president and your friend, Nyesom Wike…? What happened, because at some point, everybody thought it was all rosy?

Okay, I contested the election for the first time in 2007 to go to the Senate here in Oyo State. And, well, I lost. I contested under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). I was in PDP with Oba Rashidi Ladoja. You remember his impeachment and all of that, all the shenanigans that happened within that period? So it wasn’t possible. The PDP franchise was handed over to Baba Lamidi Adedibu. And me, as a person, as a 39-year-old trying to get into politics for the first time, I didn’t like that brand of politics. And I said I wasn’t going to be involved with that brand of politics. That was why I contested under ANPP. But ab initio my first outing in politics, I joined PDP. So, we lost. We came back 2011 in PDP again. They didn’t even allow me to go past the party primaries. So I lost. And then I said, look, I’ve been dealing with people here. I think since I’ve lost twice at the senatorial level, let me move up, let me promote myself to the governorship level.

So I contested in 2015 to be the governor of the state. Again, I lost. But my point is, in all of this journey, I never interacted with, or went to Bourdillon (Bola Tinubu’s Lagos home). No. I held my own. Whatever I couldn’t get through to the people of Oyo State, I left it like that. I don’t believe in godfatherism in politics. So I didn’t go. I stayed here. But 2019, the people of Oyo State decided. Did they decide because there is influence of anybody from Bourdillon or from outside of the state? The answer is no.

So, in 2023, we felt that after eight years of President Buhari who hailed from the north, the presidency should come to the south. And I need to also say this: I don’t believe that will be a permanent arrangement in Nigeria. I believe Nigeria will get to a point where, if you like, two Ibibio people can be president and vice president as long as they are qualified. And we have strong institutions that will ensure that they do what is right for the people of Nigeria.

So we felt that the presidency should come to the south. And within my party, Nyesom Wike was contesting, I supported him. He lost in the primaries. And then the Waziri, former vice president (Atiku Abubakar), won; he is from the north. But I said, look, if our party has selected somebody from the north then we should sit down and decide how this thing is going to work.

Atiku came to Ibadan. We were at Ogunlesi Hall at the UCH and we mentioned to him that you are the candidate of the party, you are from the Northeast; Iyorchia Ayu, the national chairman of the party, is from North Central. And in that meeting, we were facing the Press. I didn’t tell him this at the government house? No.

I said Governor Aminu Tambuwal, as of that time, was the chairman of PDP Governors Forum. I said intelligence indicated that you will appoint him as the DG of this campaign. He is from the Northwest. So what are we supposed to use to campaign to convince people because politics is a game of numbers? But we couldn’t reach any agreement.

We met with him in London. The only thing I said to him in London was, allow us to go and remove Iyorchia Ayu and then make Taofeek Arapaja the acting chairman because he was the Deputy National Chairman (South) at that time. Make Arapaja the chairman, he will be at the table when you are all talking and deciding. In London, I said just agree with us to go and remove Ayu. Don’t even bother about how we will do it. He said we should give him one week to decide. He came back to Nigeria and we heard that famous statement that those ‘small boys’ and that he had moved on. Okay, so if he moved on, what would I do? We had to do something. That is politics. So we couldn’t reach that agreement. And it wasn’t Wike that guaranteed the president (Tinubu) before me.

Because I had never had any political dealings with him (Tinubu) up until that point, someone else did the linking. I said, okay, fine. If this is what we will do, we will support you. But even as a candidate, I must have mentioned it three or four times that our expectation would be a government of national unity; a government of national competence where you could start the process of re-setting this country.

But is it what we are seeing right now? Is it a government of national competence? Is it a government of national unity? The answer is no. When the president asked me to nominate somebody who may be appointed as a minister, I said, sir, what position do you want to give to us in Oyo State? Then he said, ‘I’m looking for a developmental economist who can be the minister of budget and economic planning’. I said, okay. I will look for somebody that fits that bill. And I sent somebody’s name, who is an Oyo State indigene to him. The individual wasn’t appointed. Rather, they selected the current Minister of Power (Adebayo Adelabu). He wasn’t taken to the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning. He was taken to the Ministry of Power.

At a subsequent meeting with the president, I think I must have gone to him to seek for approval for the upgrade of the Ibadan airport. He said, ‘I’ll sign it for you. I’ll give you my nod. But, oh, sit down. What’s happening politically? I heard you are upset because your nominee was not given the ministerial slot.’ I said, ‘sir, in Yoruba land, if you don’t want the pregnancy to be aborted, you won’t want the baby to die because it’s easier to abort a pregnancy than to kill a baby.’ I said, ‘you will decide at the end of the day who you want to work with. We can only suggest people. But if you know people that fit your bill, the kind of individuals you want in your cabinet, ours is just to support you. However, let me say this. If you’ve selected the minister of power because you want him to help you organise APC in our state, he doesn’t have the capacity.’ I told the president.’l

He said, ‘no, no, no, Seyi; it is you that I want to help me organise APC in Oyo State.’ I said, ‘no, sir, I can never help you organise APC in Oyo State because I am of the PDP.’

So, if we have a government of national unity, a government of national competence, we would have been in a very different environment right now.

And let me just mention again this issue of Wike. So, this (displays a contract award paper) was the exact first contract that Mobil gave to my company, Makon

(Makon Engineering and Technical Services Limited). I was 29. It was $1 million. They subsequently added two other contracts such that within that one year (1997-1998), I had $1 million in my pocket. I was 29. 1997/98. Wike perhaps at that time just left the Law School. And then his next job after that was local government chairman. And the trajectory was…

I don’t beef anybody. But the real issue is that I was in a meeting with the president and Wike. And I’m saying this in an open chat. The president’s chief of staff was also in that meeting with a few other people. And Wike said to the president: ‘Sir, I will hold PDP for you against 2027’. I was in shock. So when we got to the veranda. I said, Wike, did we agree to this?

I don’t like talking about people and I will not talk about people or talk about events. But I’ll talk about the real issue. The real issue is that Wike would like to support the president for 2027. That’s fine. It is within his right to do that. But also some of us that want to ensure that democracy survives in Nigeria, we don’t drift into a one-party state. And we want to ensure that PDP survives. He should also allow us to do our own thing. That is just the issue between me and Wike. And I confided in a mutual friend of ours after that meeting. And I kept thinking, okay, I mean, the president did not ask him to do this for me. He was the one that volunteered that I will do that. I said to our mutual friend, look, maybe he was talking about an errand that the president never sent him. So, let’s watch. Let’s engage him. Let’s see if he will back off. But he never did. After he didn’t back off, I said, well, now it’s time to confront him, because I told him from that day that I will never be a part of this. And that is why I will not be supporting the president for 2027. Wike can support him. It is within his right. But also it is within my own right to decide within the political space who I will support or what I will do in 2027.

We now understand the real reason why there is a conflict in the PDP. Now, the party is divided along two lines. The one being led by Taminu Turaki is claiming that it is the rightful one. And I remember that INEC called the two parties to a meeting. Now, with the state PDP now found itself currently, in the forthcoming off-season elections and in 2027, does the party stand a chance? Nigeria needs a credible opposition. You’ve mentioned it that the country is fast moving towards a one-party state. Does PDP have any chance?

Well, the president has the power to call his minister to order and say allow democracy to survive in Nigeria. And by the way, the way PDP is today, there is no faction in PDP. We held a convention here in Ibadan. We gave adequate notice to INEC, which is all that we are required to do under the law. So, it will take INEC some time if they choose to behave like the ostrich, bury their head and leave all of their bodies outside. And, for the current INEC chairman, the job is very difficult to start with. Now, to hide all of these things that they are not supposed to hide. They basically called the two sides together. They played our people. They invited them and said, we want to engage with the leadership of PDP.

And then, they got there and found out that they also invited Anyanwu and co. I said, that’s even silly to start with. Pardon my language. So, why did they not call Damagun? It was Anyanwu that was the secretary when Damagun was there as chairman. And the notice that went to INEC was a notice signed by both Damagun and Anyanwu. I wanted to basically ask that they expel Anyanwu at NEC. But our leaders came and said let us not do that. Let’s get the two of them together, you know, and all of that. So, the Supreme Court already said whoever is your secretary is the internal affair of the party.

There was a Supreme Court judgment on SDP, how many days ago, saying exactly the same thing. So, we had a proper convention in Ibadan. And Wike and the rest of those people were expelled, and they’ve been expelled even if the court says the convention is not valid, which I don’t think is possible, because up to the Supreme Court it is already said these are internal affairs of the party. So, they can only delay things. But there may be unintended consequences for trying to kill the PDP. There’s a danger that if you do that, you may unknowingly kill democracy in this country, God forbid. So, that is my own position.

It’s interesting what you just revealed. The question young people have been asking for the last couple of years is, isn’t the governor of Oyo State and those who used to be part of the G5 not embarrassed what they have caused the PDP? How do you respond to them? What do you say to these young people?

Good governance, sustainable development, it’s all about a journey of the people. And I said it earlier, I can make mistakes, I’m human. I supported the current president, even though in another party at that time, because I thought, even though I never dealt directly with him, I thought we would do what is right for the country. Reset the country, like I said, bring people from all over that can help the country. But unfortunately, that is not what we’re seeing. So I regret that action. Yes, I do. I mean, if people say what have you done? Well, I’m not above mistakes. Even up until this moment, I say to people – because people have been calling me – Seyi, you can take the approach of siddon look, just keep yourself, and then let this wave go away. They even went as far as saying that by the time you’ll be done with your position as governor of your state, you’ll be 59. Even if you wait for 8 years, you’ll be 67. You can contest if you want to contest. I said, look, what are we afraid of? Is it death? If you’re afraid of death, will that stop you from dying? What can it do to you? If you’re afraid of death, what it can do to you is that it won’t allow you to live your life freely. So we’re not going to do that. I’m not afraid to speak my mind.

I’m also not afraid to apologise to people when I wrong them, because it’s only God that is all-knowing, that knows the end from the beginning. I am not, maybe people may think because I was born on Christmas Day, they may think, you know, maybe I know too much. No.

So, having admitted that you regret your actions then, you seem to be trying to correct what happened that time. And to the elephant in the room, are you planning to take the bull by the horn, run for president in 2027?

Well, I’ve heard that also. I’ve heard people saying, oh, it’s Seyi trying to position himself for the 2027 presidency. Let me make this very clear. I am qualified to serve this country at the highest level. I’m even overqualified. I’ve run Oyo State. Even the current president, what brought him to the table? He was governor of Lagos State – two terms. By the end of May 2027, God sparing my life, I would have been to the end of the tunnel as a two-term governor of Oyo State. So, what are we talking? Professionally, I ran a company from a very young age, at 29. Some of my colleagues were just finishing their youth service at that point. I ran the company, and people can go out there and check. I did not go to NNPC, you know, or the likes to get contracts.

I was working for multinational oil companies. I worked for Shell, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron. To the extent that at a point, I went on holiday to my house in Houston, Exxon Mobil came to me and said, look, we want to work in your neighbourhood. We have work to do in Chad and Cameroon, on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project. I personally, I was in Kribi, where they positioned the FSO. I sent engineers to Chad, I sent engineers to Cameroon. You can’t go there because you’re Nigerian, no. You can only go there because professionally, they have trust in you. I worked on the West African gas pipeline. ABB came to us and said, look, from Lagos, you know, to Tema in Ghana. I was in Tema myself because when I started, during the day, I was working as a field engineer. At night as the general manager. I couldn’t even tell people on my card that I own the company. Because they would look at me and say, you own which company?

So, I sent engineers to Equatorial Guinea. We worked on the Equatorial Guinea LNG. All of those things were because professionally, we did what was right. I could have joined politics in 1998 because I made enough money to do that. But I won’t tell you I’m a foundation member of PDP, no. I joined PDP in 2002. And why did I join? I joined solely because of Baba Ladoja. I joined to support him towards the 2003 elections. I already moved my family to the U.S. then, in the year 2000. I had a wife and a daughter at that time. We had the second one in December of 2000. And I moved my office from Port Harcourt to Lagos. So, most weekends, no family, nothing. So, I came to Ibadan to meet my parents. One thing led to the other.

From that place, I commissioned the classroom block that I gave to my alma mater, Bishop PhillipsAcademy, Ibadan. They brought Governor Lam Adeshina to do the commissioning at that time. And I gave him a proposal for the farm settlements here – the power solution. He said, okay my assistant will call you. I waited. Nobody called me. So, going towards 2003, I thought if a professional is elected as the governor of Oyo State, maybe things might be one shade better.

At this point, you need to have a party. You need to have a competitive political environment. At Ebonyi, I said to the Igbo nation out there that, in 1999, we’re going to have an almost very similar situation that we’re in today. All the generals, all the elites, you know, they were all gravitating towards PDP, until Ogbonnaya Onu gave up his presidential ticket in APP to have APP and AD join together and they produced Baba Olu Falae and Umar Shinkafi. And the environment became instantly competitive. So, I’m not fixated on running or not running.

Right now, if I correctly calibrate the environment, we have to go beyond PDP. We have to channel our energy towards having a competitive political environment. And that means we need to talk across the board. We need to start talking about survival of democracy in Nigeria. Individual ambition is tertiary, not even secondary. We need everybody, we should keep talking. Even people within the APC that are not happy there. We will talk to them also. We should all keep talking because we run the risk of the Arab Spring. You have people without leadership, a shoemaker will be made a leader for them and they will show us shege. In fact, people should write it down. What Nigerian people will show politicians and elites in 2027, we cannot imagine it right now. And when they say governors are defecting and all of that, what about hunger? Where is the place of hunger and anger in the land? Have they defected?

You see, if we don’t do what is right for democracy to survive in Nigeria, it will be very difficult in the foreseeable future. So the issue of running or not running and things like that is still far off. At this stage, we must ensure a competitive political environment.

Now, we know your relationship with the centre at a time when 28 state governors have already moved into the APC and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. The common excuse they give is that they cannot isolate their states from the centre and that they are doing it for the benefit of their people. Have you experienced any difficulties in terms of what comes to your state because of your political stance? Secondly, many Nigerians blame the Tinubu administration for the economic issue. Are you one of them? Do you think that the APC, Tinubu administration, misdiagnosed the ailment?

Let me first of all make one clarification. When you see governors defecting, a classical case is the last election. The then governor of Delta State was the vice presidential candidate of PDP, a sitting governor of Delta State, but Atiku lost in his state. So, you’re talking about elites and governors. How about the people? What are they doing? What are they saying? What are the people telling us? So, I will still continue to say that.

On the issue of my relationship with the centre and if I feel any impact, well, I believe the centre right now thinks it’s a game. So, we played the game and then we got into power. The game is on. But, I came into Oyo State from day one as opposition. When I became governor here, President Buhari was running his second term. So, I’ve learned to rise above partisanship to present our case. We went to President Buhari to say we wanted state police and he said I can’t support state police because you state governors are not even able to pay salaries of your workers. The federal government is giving bailouts and all of that. Why should I support you arming people and you won’t be able to pay them? I was just about four months or so as a governor at this particular time. But from day one, when I came into office, we’ve always paid salaries on the 25th of every month. This is the seventh year running and every year we pay a 13th month salary.

So, we’ve got that template right in Oyo State. In the beginning, they said you won’t be able to sustain it for more than a year. But we’ve sustained it for about seven years now. We said okay, we can’t have state police but we can have Amotekun. So, we came together as governors in the Southwest and we launched Amotekun. We just made a way between the state police that we are asking for and providing security for our people. So, sometimes you won’t get what you want.

Like on the issue of the airport in Ibadan, I went to the president and said please, let us upgrade it. These are the things that we want to do. And he wrote, ‘approved at no cost to the federal government’, and I said thank you sir. You know, at least the approval means something to us. We can go out there and do the work. And we are grateful to him. We went around looking for money to fix the airport because it is important to the Oyo State economy. As we speak, we are almost done.

Same for federal roads, give us approval even if you’re not paying. Governor Fashola was the minister for works at that time. I went to him. It took me two years to get approval to fix Oyo-Iseyin road. We fixed it because it passes through our agricultural belt. People of Oyo State don’t care if the road is local government, state government or federal government. Even if it’s a community road, fix the road. Let them go about their economic activities. So I’m not bothered about crying because I’m in the opposition. I will engage with them on the basis of doing what is right for our people. At least you have voters in this state and people that are APC as well. Even if you’re not doing it for Seyi Makinde or this administration, do it because of your own people who are in Oyo State. That is the way we’ve engaged with the federal government.

I went to the president and I also wrote to him. I said let’s solve the illegal mining problem in Oyo State. We gave a proposal. I have it on record. The president signed it and said go to the minister of mines and let’s look at the model. If we solve it in Oyo State, you can replicate it elsewhere in Nigeria. After all, during COVID, I argued at the National Economic Council when the VP at that time, Professor Osinbajo, said we should mandatorily lock down everywhere. I said I cannot lock down in Oyo State because I know people here, that if they don’t go to work today, they won’t eat tonight or eat tomorrow. Where am I going to get what to feed them with? So we went back and forth and then we agreed that, well, let it be voluntary. If you think your state has to be locked down, lock them down. And we did not lock down in Oyo State.

So we gave the proposal on illegal mines. We went there, held meetings upon meetings with my security team, with the minister of mines. At the end of the day, he came out with a mines marshal. I asked that they give me the law setting up this mines marshal. I still haven’t seen any law anywhere setting it up. OK, how many are there, even if that is the route to go? They employed 1,000 of them for the entire country. Maybe now there are 2,000 or 3,000. I believe that, yes, we’ve identified what’s to be done. They can either work with us to do it or they can go their own route. Usually the nature of a problem is such that if you have a problem and you’re able to solve it, it will go away and you move on to something else. But if you’re not able to solve it, it will come back. You can either have another go at it or it will kill you. If we can’t solve it now, there are still people coming behind us. So governments will come and go. But our state and our country will remain. However we lay our bed that is how we lie on it. So if we say we won’t solve this problem now, the problem will now go away magically. I think the bottom line is we can do more, we can do better for the people of Nigeria.

Security has been one of the biggest issues in the country. What is your take on how the government is approaching this, including the withdrawal of police from VIPs and designation of bandits, etc. Oyo State isn’t feeling the brunt so much, or is there something that worries you which you think the government can do better?

We have been extremely lucky. We’ve had service commanders posted here who have been like they’ve been posted to their actual states of origin. So they step up to the plate. We’ve had GOCs and garrison commanders who have been very supportive. Soon, they will have finished the clearance operation within the old Oyo National Park. And of course, Amotekun. I mean, it’s one institution that we created that Oyo State cannot do without right now.

If you go around and ask people they’ll say Amotekun has been cooperating and working well with the federal agencies. And that has kept Oyo State safe and secure.

I’ll use this opportunity to once again say thank you to our service commanders and everyone that has supported the state because quite frankly, you want to build schools. You want to engage in economic activities. You can only do that if your environment is safe and secure.

However, I think the federal government should have a rethink on their approach. And I’m not saying this because I’m in the opposition or I saw an AI-generated picture of me alone holding the PDP Governor’s Forum meeting in the Southern part of the country. I’m not saying this because of that. I’m saying this because I really want them to genuinely look into their strategy. One is to employ 30,000 policemen. Go ahead and employ this much soldiers and all of that. Is that our problem? What do we have on ground in terms of communication, in terms of technology, in terms of looking after the welfare of these new people? When we were agitating for state police, they came up and said, well, it’s the same as community policing. They employ these supernumeraries and all of that. Since they’ve been employed, they’ve not been paid. They can challenge me. At least I know the ones in Oyo State if not in other states. So, it has to be that synergy between the federal government, the state and the local governments. And nobody should be proud among those tiers of government. We should all come together.

In Oyo State, we hold expanded security council meetings where our traditional rulers, local government chairmen, and ourselves at the state all sit together with the service commanders. And we encourage them also to have security meetings at the local government level, at least on a monthly basis. So, those are the initiatives that have to be brought to the table. The federal government alone cannot do it. And they’re also far removed. Some of these can’t be solved also by kinetic means alone. You engage your traditional rulers, you engage the community leaders, you get them to give you actionable intelligence and Oyo State just acquired two aircraft which I’m hoping we can deploy within the first quarter of next year. I actually push and push that they should be available before the Oyo State @50 celebration in February next year. They will be here but they may not take to the sky just about that time. But they will, within the first quarter of next year. And I can invite all of you back and we will sit inside the Amotekun control room and we ask the aircraft to fly to anywhere in Oyo State. Ogbomoso, Oke-Ogun or anywhere. And with the data coming in, we would ask them to zoom in to the number plate of vehicles there. We would be able to do that.

What has been happening in the area of education sir? You invested in education, and that’s wonderful. But in the area of quality of education, what are you planning to do in the next couple of years before you hand over to whoever becomes the next governor? Added to that is the issue of healthcare, one of the two most important things to any citizen. What are you doing over the next couple of years?

When we came in and looked at the primary healthcare and also the diseases and ailments that are killing our people, we decided that we must have category three primary healthcare in every electoral ward in Oyo State – 351 of them. And as of the last count, we have only 66 left that are being worked on right now. I believe that it should be done before the middle of next year. I don’t have a lot of time left here. I have maybe 17 or 16 months.

So we’ve also employed healthcare workers. I mean, check the record, Oyo State, we’ve employed, we’re training the people, we’ve upgraded even our Institute of Health Technology. So I believe we’re going to do that. The French government was going to give a concessionary loan on the continent of Africa, right? And they had 100 million euros, you know, for the continent. And Oyo State got 55 million euros out of that, you know. So we just have it signed off. It took some time. It took us almost two or three years, you know, to get it through. It was just passed in the borrowing plan with the National Assembly now. So we’re moving ahead with that. That, we will use to upgrade secondary healthcare facilities, one in every zone, you know, of Oyo State. And then in the 2026 budget, we’ll also have money set aside for the LAUTECH Teaching Hospital annex at Oyo. So I believe we’re doing okay.

And in terms of the amount of money relative to our total budget voted for healthcare, I think we’re also doing very well in terms of international benchmark for education. I am a product of the public school system in Oyo State. I attended St. Paul and St. Michael’s primary school, Yemetu, not up to a kilometres from here. And then I also attended Bishop Philip’s Academy, Iwo Road, Ibadan. I turned out to be what I am today. So I understand precisely what we’re supposed to do. We have special intervention now going into the education sector.

What is the post-Seyi Makinde administration going to look like, because you’ve invested so much and built so much infrastructure, how are you going to ensure that whoever is succeeding you continues these projects?

Well, we’ve changed the culture in Oyo State. If you see any project started by any of my predecessors that has not been completed, please bring it up to the table. We will deal with it. And then people say it’s Seyi Makinde, it’s not Seyi Makinde there. It’s the team behind all of this. So I ask the people that, you know, if we’re talking about the team, you’ve watched Omituntun 1.0. We call it Omituntun Apa kini here. And then you watched Omituntun 2.0, which is my second tenure. What we are cooking now is Omituntun 3.0. If we get to 4.0 and all of that, because it’s the team. We just get someone else to lead the same team and we should be able to solve that problem.

You recently signed the 2026 Oyo State’s “budget of economic expansion” into law. Your government is anchored on Health, Infrastructure, Agribusiness, Security, and Education among others. How do you plan to finance the N892billion budget when you consider the state’s federal allocation and IGR? In real-time, what does the budget mean for the people of Oyo State?

Our FAAC is roughly N19bn to N20 billion monthly. So, that’s about N240 billion. And we have the IGR which is roughly N8 billion. So, that’s another N96 billion, almost N100 billion. When you add that together, we have almost N340 billion. You also have receipts from other sources. Then you have investments also in the state. And then, we in Oyo State tried to de-emphasise going cap in hand, on a monthly basis, to Abuja for federal allocation and things like that. For us, from the outset we focussed on infrastructure and the economy. For instance, if a road doesn’t make sense economically, we’re not going to do it. Because, at this point, what we’re trying to do is expand our economy. Under Omituntun 2.0, we said expansion of our economy will go through agribusiness; also solid minerals, tourism and infrastructure. We said expansion of our economy will go through agribusiness, also solid minerals, tourism and infrastructure. The idea was to have a circular road to a concessionaire. Let them raise the money and then recover their money over maybe 25, 30 years. But I couldn’t get that. We said, okay, we have to chest it.

So in the first phase, we put in the resources of the state. In the course of the year, we spent close to $200 million on the first phase – the 32-kilometer stretch. It’s almost completed now. We will commission its first phase in the first quarter of 2026. And with that, if we get a concessionaire, we would have had capital receipts of almost $200 million which we can put in the budget. So, on budget estimates we hope we’ll get this in and this is how we will apply it. But I remember my first year in the office – I came in on May 29, 2019 – the budget for 2019 was prepared by the previous administration. So we had to run it to the end. We reduced it. We came out and looked at the receipts. I think the budget there was about N240 billion. We reduced it by 25%.

So, if you check the budget performance for Oyo State in the last six years, we’ve been at about 70, 75%. So, this one is not going to be any different.

And according to BudgIT, Oyo State has done well in some areas. Oyo is ranked Number 4 in consumption in the states across 35 states of the nation. And the IGR is calculated as being relatively lower than most states. Is there a problem with tax collection or generation of revenue by the state? Are there challenges in that area over the last six years?

First, we made up our minds that we will not increase taxes paid by our people. No new taxes. So in the past six plus years, we’ve had no new taxes in our state. But what we’ve done is we’ve brought in more people into the tax net. It’s a chicken and egg type of situation. What do you do first? Do you tax the people first or do you allow them to create an enabling environment where they can expand production? When you expand production and you have a productive economy, instead of a consultative economy, then you are in a position to tax more and raise your IGR.

So that is a less traveled road, but that is the road that we decided as a government to take. And I’ll tell you what we’ve done in the past. This year we looked at the landscape in Nigeria. We looked at schemes that other African countries have been able to take advantage of to expand their economy. Let’s take AGOA for instance – the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). What is the data for Nigeria? But countries like Mauritius, Rwanda, all of those countries, Kenya, take advantage of AGOA. They expanded their productive base. But we were still talking about FAAC and all of that. So we said no.

Now, we looked at the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA. There’s a provision in there that you don’t necessarily have to operate at the national level. The subnational can also go out there, get their own deals and then fulfill it. So, in the continent of Africa, Oyo State became the first sub-national government to sign the agreement as a party. So, any day you have AfCTA events, Oyo State will be at the table with other heads of government from other African countries.

Why did we do that? We didn’t want to wait for federal allocations. We want to broaden our own productive base. We want to be able to, under that protocol, expand our own economy and sell to other African countries.

Beyond structures and infrastructures, what would, let’s say, the ordinary man, Jamilu, in Beere, say about your administration that has changed their lives?

What I heard from Jamilu in Beere is that, look, Mr. Governor, we don’t want this music to stop. You know, we are paying salaries on the 25th of every month. It’s about now N20 billion for the state and about N12 to N13 billion for the local government. That is N33 billion into Oyo State’s economy every four weeks. Jamil, carpenters, you know, traders, market women, they’re all having this. And then you need to look at the atmosphere that we’ve provided, the economic activities going on in there. I think their concern is how will this music not stop?

How about Local Government autonomy?

So many inconsistencies here. For instance, they created LCDAs in Lagos. Is that consistent with local government autonomy? What are you saying when you have created LCDAs? Are you not saying that the local government should be under the state? So how come now suddenly…? So I know there’s a Supreme Court judgment on this matter, but some of these things may not be resolved strictly through the judicial process. Some, you have to negotiate a political solution and things like that. I think this will fall into that category where people should honestly come to the table and say we have issues with this area or that area. We can’t keep shifting. If you are at the sub-national level, you take one position. If you’re at the federal level, you take another position. I don’t think that should be it.

Your government has invested heavily in road infrastructure. Some areas that were not accessible, you’ve linked them. The Iseyin-Ogbomoso Road, Ibadan-Iseyin road, and that hub is the core agribusiness, the food basket of the state. However, the circular road project has been generating some issues, especially the 500m corridor. What is the philosophy behind the road? What is the state doing to ensure that those who have property and genuine claims will be adequately compensated?

The concept of the circular road is to ease the movement of those who need rapid transfer around Ibadan. You should have a road that can encircle the city because it’s a growing city. I came in on a British Airways flight. When we landed in Lagos, they gave us some data about the flight. They said we flew by Barcelona, a city of over one million people. It also flew past Cannes, 500,000 plus people. It flew past Ibadan to get to Lagos, 3.5 million people; I know that we’re even slightly more. But if you go around Ibadan today, there’s no gridlock the type you experience in Lagos. And we don’t want that to happen because you learn from the experience of others. The acquisition of the circular road corridor was done well before I even became a governor.

It was gazetted and was published in the Nigerian Tribune of November 19, 2018. The idea of that circular road was mooted initially by Baba Lam Adeshina, but it was brought out as a project and the first real attempt to execute it was made by the current Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja. And that’s why we named the entire 110-kilometer corridor as Rashidi Ladoja Circular Road – because he set aside the first seed money, although it wasn’t done, from records available to us. When Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala came in, the priorities changed. He would rather use that money for other roads. So it’s not about Seyi Makinde or this administration grabbing people’s land. But when we came in, there was an encroachment on the corridor and we said what do we do? We decided that we should go on with the project. Where we can get the 500 meters on both sides, we’ll take it. Where we cannot because of development, we will look at it. But for a highway like that, you have a minimum standard you have to maintain to the highway. And this will be the first proper motorway in Nigeria simply because it is in the mode of maybe M25 in London, the London Orbiter. For people that are used to America, in Houston, Beltway 8 which goes around Houston.

We know that the government exists to look after the people. So we asked most of these people for their documents. No documents. But we still did not say ‘no documents, so you must go outside and be homeless. We said even with no document, if you can prove that you’re the one living in those houses, we will compensate you so that you can go elsewhere and settle in.

Why did we develop that corridor? And the corridor is not just about people wanting to build estates. No, it’s for industrial and commercial concerns as well, because if you have to move from a consumptive economy to a productive one, you must have industrial corridors and your children will have to work somehow. They have to work somewhere.

So it is easier to take the bullet for the incoming administration because the people of Oyo State have gotten so used to me that they can vouch for me. They know what I stand for. So if I come in and say, look, this is what we’re doing, they believe me. We’ve been able to reduce to the barest minimum the trust deficit between the government and the people, at least here in your state. After I went to address the people in that corridor, they asked me if I could sign that successive administrations will not bother them again. So you trusted me to that extent that you wanted me to sign for you? I said, well, I will sign for you. But when the time comes also, I will also introduce people that will not bother you, you know, and then you can be rest assured that the principle of government being a continuum will apply.

Infrastructure is good, but the central thing happens to be the people. How are you ensuring that poverty is tackled, particularly in the last six years that you’ve been in the saddle in the state?

For me as a person and for this administration, people tell us that they have gone around and see no potholes. We’ve built a state road almost 150 kilometers from Ibadan to Ogbomoso, there are no potholes, not one pothole. I think the people ‘ll say yes about infrastructure. But I won’t want to be remembered for building roads and all that, no. We will love to be remembered for the institutions that we’re creating that will ensure that there’s good governance and sustainable development and growth long after we’ve left this place. If I ask people who constructed that existing ring road – I went to search for the history of that road and I found that when it was constructed, it was the most expensive road per kilometer that was ever constructed in Nigeria at the time. And if you ask people who constructed that road now, I can tell you they do not know. So that is what you get. The only way they will know who started the road will be if the road is not finished. If the project becomes abandoned, then they will tell you, ah, this road was started by XYZ. When I was working within the oil patch at Kwale, we went to Ogume. We saw an abandoned bridge. When I asked the people in that area they said that the bridge was built during Ogbemudia’s time. Successive governments did not complete it, and you can get credits for that. But if you start a project, finish it, and people start to use it, within a very short time, they would have forgotten.

So for us in Oyo State, we believe that we’re not going to give people handouts. We will create, and we’ve been creating that conducive environment for people to come in and have opportunities. And then they’ll take themselves out of poverty.

I was working on Shell Boni terminal when they were sand filling the entire Finima for the Nigeria LNG project. And then all the fishermen and those people, they built decent houses for them. It didn’t take five years before the whole place was turned into a shanty town.

I argued this with the World Bank. Their preference is to have conditional cash transfer, give people money and I said no. In Oyo State, what we did was rather subsidise the productive efforts of our people. We said when we hit this economic whirlwind, a lot of state governments were bringing in palliatives. Okay, yeah, we’ll have palliatives, you know, give food to people. What we did here was we created what we call the SAFER program. It’s Sustainable Action for Economic Recovery.

Our SAFER programme, part of it, is the transportation sector. We pay the state’s transport company, they move close to 20,000 people every day. For those 20,000 people, the vulnerable ones in there, students, elderly, physically challenged, they paid a discounted price, half the price. So, we subsidized them with N100 million every month. But that N100 million is actually subsidising productivity. You’re not going to just get on the bus for a ride because it’s half price. You get on the bus for a ride because you’re going somewhere that is important to you which are likely going to yield something productive for you. So, that’s our approach here.

How do you balance compromise and conviction? How do you determine what to go ahead with, no matter what people think, no matter what people say, and what to compromise?

I believe that the government should look after the people. I also always tell my people that we’re not the most brilliant around. We’re not infallible, it’s only God that cannot make mistakes. So, we may make decisions that may, in the long run, be wrong. I told people when I was asking for their votes that I may not be right all the time, but I will be honest all the time to the people.

So, if we did anything which, in the end, we have to adjust because new facts became available to us, we’re not that proud to say, look, we won’t do that. So, I think that’s really the way we’ve operated. And it has connected us more to the people because they know. I go around them. I stay with them. I listen to them.

You took up the upgrading of the Ibadan airport. Why did you upgrade the airport? Oyo State can take advantage of the airport in Ogun State; it’s an international airport. And it’s so close. But you decided to go ahead and upgrade the airport in Ibadan, why?

I know you’re a little biased because you’re from Ogun State. Ibadan Airport has been in existence for at least 40 years. It was inaugurated in 1982. So, talking about the airport at Ogere, we looked at the economy of Ogun State, and we looked elsewhere around the world. The best example I can give to you is just look at Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They are just like Lagos to Ibadan. Maybe slightly longer. I think it’s about 150, 154 kilometers. Here, (Lagos-Ibadan) it is 110, 112 kilometers. In fact, it’s 135 kilometers from Ojoo, Ibadan. And between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, not only do you have two international airports, but they also have Emirates in one. They have Etihad in the other. And they come into this place and you decide, oh, okay, I’m flying Emirates. I’m flying Etihad. But you land only 150 kilometers apart. And they are both doing well. So, for us here, the airport is one of those sub-pillars that we felt we could use to expand our economy.

When we were given the opportunity to serve the people of Oyo State for the second term, we added tourism to it. Yes, I’ve seen people say, well, you can come to Ikogosi in Ekiti State. Or you can go to this and that. The question is how do you get there? I mean, the federal roads are not that great. If you’re going from Ibadan here to Ife, Ilesha, it’s a very difficult journey. My friend, the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, said they are starting the construction of the road with concrete. But they started from Ilesha end and I don’t know when it is going to get here. It hasn’t even got to Ile Ife yet.

We, here, have been able to connect all the zones in Oyo State. We have five major zones: Ibadan, Oyo, Ogbomoso, Oke Ogun and Ibarapa. You have a state road, you know, linking Ibadan zone to Oke-Ogun – 65 kilometers: Moniya to Iseyin, we built it. That was the very first contract that this administration awarded because Oke-Ogun is the food basket of Oyo State and Ibadan is the consumption centre.

So we needed that link. Then we linked Oke-Ogun zone to Oyo zone through 37 kilometers from Iseyin to Oyo. We also linked Oke-Ogun to the Ogbomoso zone. 78.6 kilometers from Iseyin to Ogbomoso. When we came in, it was a footpath. There was no road there at all. We constructed it brand new. I remember when I called the chairman of the Governor’s Forum to come and flag off the road for me. He looked at me, because we had constructed about maybe five or six kilometers before he came in to flag it off. He said, Seyi, this is a federal project that you’re doing here, you know, because it’s a solid road. And currently we are linking Ibarapa zone to Ibadan through Ido – Eruwa road. So we’ve done all of that work. We have tourist centers and tourist attractions within Oyo State. We’ve done the heavy lifting by connecting all the zones in Oyo State.

If we have the airport in Ibadan as a gateway for the people, we can really be on our own. We can do things suitable to our state and our own environment.