KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Oyo State Government protested the Federal Government’s flag-off of the Ibadan-Ijebu-Ode Road dualisation at Idi Ayunre without inviting Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde.
- Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Prince Dotun Oyelade, said the exclusion had a political undertone tied to 2027, and called it partisan politics.
- Prince Dotun Oyelade rejected claims Makinde’s leave justified the snub, saying an Acting Governor could represent the state, and he said Makinde stayed unperturbed.
The Oyo State government has protested the exclusion of Governor Seyi Makinde from the flag-off of the dualisation of the Ibadan-Ijebu-Ode Road in Oluyole Local Government Area of the state.
CityNews reports that the federal government flagged off the project at Idi Ayunre on Monday.
While the flag-off was attended by Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, Minister of Works Dave Umahi, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Sarafadeen Alli, and the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, Governor Makinde was not invited to the occasion.
Reacting to the development, the Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Prince Dotun Oyelade, said the governor’s exclusion has a political undertone linked to the forthcoming 2027 elections.
He expressed displeasure over what he described as the deliberate exclusion of Makinde from an event concerning a major federal road project within the state.
Oyelade said excluding Makinde from the ceremony amounted to taking partisan politics beyond acceptable limits, given the importance of the road project to Oyo State and the wider South-West region.
The commissioner also faulted the explanation that Makinde was not invited because he was on leave, arguing that the presence of an Acting Governor meant the state had adequate representation available for the event.
Oyelade said Makinde’s absence from the state could therefore not reasonably have been used as justification for excluding the Oyo State Government from a major federal infrastructure event taking place within its territory.
The commissioner said Makinde remained unperturbed by the development but regretted that an occasion that should have focused on the commencement of a strategically important road project had instead been reduced to what he described as a “political jamboree.”
Oyelade, however, insisted that the administration would not be distracted by the development, insisting that the people of Oyo State remained the ultimate stakeholders in the state’s political direction.
“The course of 2027 is set, and no level of indecorum or desperation from whatever quarters will hold back the will of the people,” Oyelade said.
