There is a popular Yoruba saying that when a man clears a bush where snakes once found comfort, he should expect the reptiles to hiss before they flee. Politics in Oyo State has never been for the faint-hearted.
It is a chessboard where friendships often expire at the doorstep of ambition, where yesterday’s ally can become today’s fiercest critic, and where loyalty sometimes lasts only as long as the aroma from a pot of fresh soup.
Since Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999, Oyo has remained one of the country’s most unpredictable political theatres where governments have come and gone, parties have changed colours like the chameleon perched on an iroko tree, yet one thing has remained stubbornly constant: politics has largely revolved around powerful personalities rather than enduring institutions.
More often than not, men have become bigger than the platforms that produced them, and political influence has outweighed any form of ideology for governance. This suffices to why some have continued to likened Oyo’s politics to ‘Amala and gbegiri’.
As another African proverb reminds us, “When the drummer changes his rhythm, the dancers must also change their steps.” The unfolding political drama surrounding Governor Seyi Makinde appears to be another chapter in this long story.
Yet this time, there is an unusual twist. Increasingly, there are arguments that the governor is being painted as the villain not because he has done everything wrong, but because his style of governance has unsettled those who grew fat under the old political order.
To understand today’s political turbulence, one must first understand yesterday’s footprints.
From the administration of Late Lam Adesina to Rashidi Ladoja, from Adebayo Alao-Akala to the late Abiola Ajimobi, Oyo politics has often resembled a marketplace where the loudest voice attracted the largest crowd.
Political parties were important, but influential individuals frequently became the real centres of gravity.
Lam Adesina carried the progressive torch handed down from the Awolowo political tradition, yet internal rivalries occasionally threatened to dim its flame.
Then came the turbulent years of Rashidi Ladoja and the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu, a period that taught Nigerians that when two elephants wrestle, it is the grass beneath that suffers most.
The impeachment saga remains one of the darkest reminders of how personality clashes can swallow democratic institutions whole.
Under Alao-Akala, grassroots politics flourished through expansive patronage networks.
The late Abiola Ajimobi later sought to strengthen governmental authority and reduce the influence of entrenched political power brokers.
Yet every administration discovered the same hard truth: dismantling old political habits is easier said than done.
Throughout these years, loyalty often belonged to individuals rather than institutions. Political tents were pitched around personalities, not principles. It was less about the constitution or good governance, and more about who controlled the political compass.
When Seyi Makinde emerged in 2019, he entered Government House carrying a different political script and singing a different song; “I don’t have a political godfather, God and the masses are my political godfathers”.
Unlike many before him, his rise was not woven around the traditional fabric of political godfatherism. His reputation rested more on private enterprise, relentless philanthropy and administrative competence than on inherited political structures.
From the outset, he attempted to move governance away from personality worship towards institutional development. Government policies gradually became louder than political slogans.
Performance indicators began to speak where propaganda once shouted.
Infrastructure, education, healthcare, agriculture, fiscal discipline and investment promotion increasingly dominated public conversations.
Whether one applauds every decision or disagrees with some of his policies is beside the point. Few would deny that governance gradually became more programme-driven than personality-driven.
To borrow another African proverb, “The stream that flows quietly often irrigates more farms than the river that makes the loudest noise.”
Why Good Governance Sometimes Breeds Bitter Enemies
Politics possesses its own strange mathematics.
Ironically, when institutions begin to function properly, those who once prospered from disorder often become uncomfortable.
When appointments begin to favour competence over political indebtedness, when contracts are no longer shared like festive kola nuts among familiar faces, when public funds travel through stricter channels, when influence no longer guarantees unrestricted access to government coffers, the music changes, and not everyone still knows how to really dance.
Those who once regarded government as an open barn without a second address suddenly find the gates firmly locked.
As our elders wisely say, “The goat that has always fed freely in another man’s farm cries loudest when the fence is repaired.”
Many of today’s loud political complaints, particularly against Makinde, may therefore have less to do with governance itself and more to do with changing rules of engagement.
If there is one constant at all in Oyo politics, it is that succession rarely travels on a smooth road. This is undisputed because history speaks very clearly.
Lam Adesina could not effortlessly install a successor, Rashidi Ladoja met similar political resistance. Alao-Akala faced his own succession battles, and
Ajimobi also discovered that political crowns cannot simply be handed over like family heirlooms.
Every transition has resembled crossing a river filled with hidden crocodiles, and as the journey towards 2027 continues to gather momentum, familiar political instincts are once again awakening from slumber.
Old alliances are being dusted, friendships are being hurriedly stitched together, former rivals are suddenly exchanging warm embraces, political pilgrims now move from one camp to another like traders searching for the busiest market.
In this kind of atmosphere, Makinde naturally becomes the tallest tree in the forest, this is because as the incumbent governor, he is the one every woodcutter first sharpens his axe to cut down.
Perhaps the greatest irony surrounding Makinde’s administration is that his conciliatory disposition to issues may have become one of his biggest political burdens.
Unlike leaders who ruled with clenched fists, Makinde has often chosen the open palm.
He has reconciled with former opponents, retained individuals who once stood against him, accommodated dissenting voices, and has on many occasions, chosen dialogue over vendetta.
But politics is a curious marketplace where what some call maturity, others mistake for weeakness, and what appears to be magnanimity is sometimes interpreted as vulnerability.
The elders have long warned that “The hand that feeds the chick should not expect the grown bird to remain forever in the nest.”
Many who once climbed political ladders with government support now kick away those same ladders after reaching the rooftop. And this is so because politics, sadly, is not always a grateful profession.
Modern politics is increasingly fought with perception rather than performance, that is why in tooday’s politicking, narratives travel faster than facts.
A completed road can be ignored if the story surrounding it is loud enough regardless if such story is a rhetoric aimed at controlling certain narrative or not.
A functioning hospital can disappear beneath the fog of political propaganda.
Every difficult reform becomes a weapon.
Every compromise is interpreted as surrender, appointment becomes evidence of conspiracy, achievements are deliberately shrunk, and little mistakes committed as a result of human fallibility, are stretched beyond proportion.
A Yoruba proverb says, “If a man wishes to kill a dog, he first gives it a bad name.”
This is perhaps the battlefield upon which much of today’s political contest is taking place as 2027 beckons.
The objective is no longer merely to challenge policies; it is to reshape public perception against good governance for political gains. And where the larger percentage of the real voters are within the circle of semi illiterates and outright illiterates, loud and consistent narratives easily outrun facts.
Again, beyond the daily political quarrels among actors, lies a far more important question; what kind of political culture should Oyo State leave behind, should the future still revolve around powerful individuals whose influence rises and falls with elections, or should institutions become strong enough to survive whoever occupies the governor’s office?
Roads remember no political party, hospitals do not ask who commissioned them before saving lives, schools continue to educate children long after campaign posters have faded beneath the rain, political slogans disappear like harmattan mist, but institutions remain standing if properly nurtured.
Nevertheless, history also sas a ense of humour and perhaps nothing illustrates the irony of Oyo politics better than today’s unfolding events ahead of the next electoral cycle.
Some who now accuse Makinde of excessive influence once defended stronger political control when it favoured them.
Others who now preach transparency were remarkably silent when opacity ruled the day in the past, and some who now speak passionately about democratic values once celebrated politics driven by patronage, all because they were still in the mix of things.
Africans often say, “The man who forgets where the rain first soaked him will soon mock the umbrella that once sheltered him.” That is why politics has a remarkable way of exposing selective memory, especially during political seasons.
As another election cycle slowly approaches, Oyo people face a choice that extends beyond political parties and campaign promises.
Will the state continue chasing powerful personalities like children chasing butterflies, or will it deliberately strengthen institutions capable of standing long after today’s political gladiators have left the arena?
That is the conversation that truly matters and should really concern every citizen and residents of the state.
For Governor Seyi Makinde, history’s judgment may ultimately rest not on the volume of today’s political attacks but on whether he succeeded in nurturing the institutions he has entrenched whose shade future generations will enjoy.
If that becomes his lasting legacy, then the irony would be complete.
He would have become a victim, not because he governed without faults, for no leader does, but because he dared to change the rules of a game that had enriched the elites for too long as against the masses.
And perhaps that is why another timeless African proverb rings so true today: “The tree laden with the sweetest fruits is the one that receives the greatest number of stones.”
Whether those stones are the healthy missiles of democracy or merely the dust raised by bruised political ambitions is a verdict that only time, and the people of Oyo state…will decide at the polls.
Ibrahim Adekola, writes from Yemetu, Ibadan.
