The Senator Sharafadeen Alli Campaign Organisation (SSACO) has said that rejection of Governor Seyi Makinde by the Allied People’s Movement (APM) leaders in South-South Zone is a confirmation of its position that his presidential ambition is dead on arrival.
The APM South-South leaders had in a newspaper advertorial on Wednesday, passed a vote of no confidence in Makinde, accusing him of lacking substance, the political will and focus to lead the party aright. “He came to the party with a promise of lies and has been wallowing in an ocean of dishonesty, political compromise and incompetence. If he cannot be honest to his party men, how can he be honest to Nigerians he aspires to lead? The APM leaders queried.
The SSACO, in a statement by its director of media and publicity Bisi Oladele on Wednesday, said the rejection is a clear vindication of the position of the Senator Sharafadeen Alli Campaign Organization that Makinde is only playing a spoiler’s game, using a fake presidential bid to negotiate soft landing ahead of the 2027 general elections. It stressed that Governor Makinde knows within himself that he cannot win the presidential race but is trying to use his position as a serving governor to undermine the votes of President Bola Tinubu in Southwest Nigeria.
“The good news is that he will not only lose to President Tinubu in Oyo State, his lackey – Hon. Bimbo Adekanmbi – who he is desperate to install for an undemocratic third term, will be flatly defeated by Senator Sharafadeen Alli, whose Oyo AHEAD agenda will put Oyo State on a faster development lane from next year.
“The SSACO is glad that more stakeholders are now seeing through Makinde’s lies and rejecting his antics, confirming that no Nigerian takes Makinde seriously again. His ambition is what it is: a smokescreen and dead on arrival,” the statement posited.
The campaign organisation also pointed to Makinde’s political structures in Oyo State which is crumbling daily as associates and party leaders resign in droves thereby isolating him for his alleged selfish decisions.
“If a man cannot manage his party in his own state, how can he manage Nigeria?” a South-South APM leader queried at the meeting on Tuesday.
“The South-South stakeholders are therefore in sync with the reality in Oyo that Seyi Makinde is a man who does not recognize established party structures, same way he abandoned those who supported him to win the 2019 and 2023 gubernatorial elections.
“In the past few weeks, no single day passes without one aide or the other resigning from his sinking cabinet. It has shown that Governor Seyi Makinde who cannot manage his own men within Oyo State, needs not be taken seriously about his ambition. It is dead on arrival,” the statement concluded.
