During the coronation of Oba Adebayo Adegbola as the new Eleruwa of Eruwa at the Eruwa Township Stadium last Saturday, the Oyo State governor, Mr Seyi Makinde, did something all great leaders and statesmen do: he apologized for a shortcoming. Instead of papering over the cracks, Governor, Makinde apologised to the people of Eruwa and Ibarapaland over the delay being experienced in the completion of a 48-kilometre Eleyele-Eruwa road awarded months ago. He then gave a completion timeline of 11 months. And the people roared in applause, knowing that their governor is a man of integrity. As the governor said on the occasion: “One good thing about this administration is that our project can be delayed, but definitely not abandoned. This administration has completed all the projects that the past governments abandoned.”
Predictably, though, this beautiful moment gave a notorious blackmailer, Sola Abegunde, yet another opportunity to mount his high horse of arrogance and Makinde bashing. In a piece—actually a pile of garbage–titled “So, Governor Makinde could be ashamed of his failures?”, he poured endless invectives on the Oyo State governor, calling him every negative name under the sun. He accused the governor of enthroning “Samuel Adebayo Adegbola as the Eleruwa of Eruwa in disregard of the judgments of the Oyo State High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme court of Nigeria,” then launched into his usual tirade on Makinde’s performance. He said he had “warned the Governor that his coming to Eruwa would be tamtam to a celebration of shamelessness but he ignored my warning.” Let us ignore “tamtam to a celebration of shamelessness” for now, because good grammar isn’t Abegunde’s forte.
First off, just how is it a failure on the part of Governor Makinde to tender an apology where one was evidently due? Does that act of courage and forthrightness make him less of a governor? Was he supposed to have threatened the people he apparently holds in high esteem instead of apologizing to them? Some people write before they think. And then, what was that nonsense about Makinde overruling the Supreme Court? Oba Adegbola, one of the candidates from the Olurin Ruling Family of Akalako Ruling House following the commencement of another selection process by the state government in 2024, was unanimously selected by the kingmakers among 18 candidates and appointed the new Eleruwa of Eruwa by the Oyo State Government on March 16, 2025.
The background: the apex court had unseated him after 21 years on the throne, ordering a new process that would see the Olaribikusi ruling family producing another Eleruwa. The Oyo State Government complied with the judgment and asked the family to provide a candidate, but the family sadly failed to do so even after the expiration of the timeline provided by law. The kingmakers then asked the next ruling house to produce a candidate, and it did. They then unanimously endorsed that candidate, namely Adegbola, to which Governor Makinde consented, as provided by law. It was a simple case of a ruling house sleeping on its rights, the way the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State waived its rights by failing to challenge a suit filed by the Action Peoples Party (APP) over the state’s LG elections for two years, thus leading to the sack of APC chairmen and councilors by the Court of Appeal. But Abegunde could not help feeding his readers with the trademark half-truths and barefaced lies. Does he expect Eruwa to be permanently detained by the indecision of a ruling house, without leadership and without direction like his reprobate mind?
Abegunde’s grouse is not hard to decipher, though. There is peace and calm in Oyo State, in spite of his ceaseless vituperations and incitements to violence against the person and office of the Oyo State governor. Day in, day out, this fellow pours invectives on the governor, showing his dark, unhinged mind. Falsifying figures, conjuring nonexistent data, seeking to create chaos and disaffection as a master insurrectionist, this perpetual naysayer and implacable enemy of progress condemns every project that Makinde executes in the state he claims to love. Arguing with agbero candour, Abegunde has written tones of essays that portray him as a person completely lacking in civility and without home training (proper upbringing); a man with a purchasable conscience. He constantly insults the sensibilities of Oyo people, who rewarded Makinde’s good performance with a second term of office on an unprecedented scale, by claiming that electing him was a mistake. Furious at every project completed, railing against infrastructure just to get at Makinde in his demonic obsession and jaundiced opposition, Abegunde is a pathetic puppy lost in the wilderness, an errand boy of political failures. Dirty inside out, chronically illogical and without even the slightest shred of reverence for facts, Abegunde declares with a bold face that nothing good can come from Makinde, a man constantly rated as one of Nigeria’s finest governors. Only in April, Governor Makinde and his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Pastor Umo Eno, topped the chart as Nigeria’s “most loved” and “most inspiring” governors, according to the 2024 leadership survey report released by the Nigeria Social Media Week Group (NSG). Yet Abegunde calls him a failure. Not even Lucifer in his finery of falsehood is that tactless and senseless.
In his megalomania, Abegunde said he had instructed Governor Makinde not to visit Eruwa but that the governor had not paid heed! Wow, this clown evidently thinks he is Emperor of Nigeria, and he had better undergo psychiatric evaluation before too late. He once claimed that Makinde’s prompt payment of worker’s salaries had a political undertone! Pray, will Nigeria not develop very fast if leaders play that kind of politics? If Makinde making Oyo State an investment destination is playing politics, are we not all lucky to be witnesses to such politicking? If the resurrection of the Fashola Agric Hub that has drawn international attraction is politics, shall we not borrow a line from William Shakespeare and ask the governor to please “play on” ? Who did the President of Sierra Leone come to visit and understudy? Was it not Makinde?
The charge that Makinde overruled the Supreme Court is not new. Abegunde made the same claim following the Supreme Court judgment on LG autonomy when, relying on science, data and logic, Governor Makinde posed certain fundamental questions about LG formation and administration in a federal set up. Needless to say, time has vindicated Makinde as the LGs remain mired in crisis, while Abegunde remains lost in the wilderness of ignorance. It is obvious that this clown lives, thinks, eats and sleeps and possibly even dreams Makinde, blinded by demonic hatred and chained down by perverse thoughts. The way he rants on a daily basis, you would think that this world was all about Makinde. He will soon blame Seyi Makinde for rewarding the 1998 WAFU Cup winners with the lands promised them by the Oyo State Government 27 years ago.
Does this man have a job? Or a family that offers him wise counsel? Will somebody help this ruffian before he unravels finally in a mental facility? Perhaps he can still be salvaged even if he sounds irredeemably savage.
*Akanni sent this from Ologuneru in Ibadan.
