In politics victories are often mistaken for solutions. The hypothetical rise of Péter Magyar as Hungary’s anti-Orbán prime minister would, at first glance, appear to be one such triumph, an overdue correction in a country long defined by democratic erosion and illiberal swagger. But beneath the celebratory headlines lies a more complicated and less comforting truth, not all political change is structural change and not all opposition is transformative.
Magyar’s ascent has already been read, especially in Brussels, as a symbolic turning point, a sign that the European project still possesses self-correcting instincts. The narrative writes itself easily, voters reject authoritarian drift, restore balance, and realign with European norms. Yet symbolism is a fragile currency in governance. It can soothe anxieties without addressing the underlying conditions that produced them.
Hungary’s political system under Orbán did not emerge overnight, nor did it thrive solely because of one man’s ambitions. It was cultivated through years of institutional weakening, media consolidation and a careful reshaping of public expectations. Reversing that trajectory requires more than electoral victory; it demands a deliberate, sustained reconstruction of democratic culture. There is little evidence to suggest that Magyar, however well-intentioned, would possess either the political capital or the strategic clarity to undertake such a project at scale.
Instead, his leadership risks becoming a transitional spectacle, a change in tone rather than a change in substance. The danger here is not overt authoritarianism but something subtler, democratic stagnation dressed up as renewal. Hungary could drift into a kind of political limbo, where the most egregious excesses are curbed but the deeper distortions remain intact. Institutions might function but not flourish. Public trust might stabilize but not recover.
Meanwhile, beyond Hungary’s borders, the implications would ripple in less obvious ways. Within the European Union, Magyar’s victory would likely be interpreted as validation, not of democratic resilience in Hungary but of the EU’s existing approach to dealing with internal dissent. For years, the bloc has oscillated between mild reprimands and bureaucratic pressure, often appearing reactive rather than strategic. A post-Orbán Hungary would allow EU leadership to claim success without having fundamentally changed its methods.
This is where the political calculus becomes more revealing. Rather than sparking a broader reckoning with the rise of far-right movements across Europe, Hungary’s shift could paradoxically deflate the urgency of that conversation. If one of the most prominent “problem states” appears to self-correct, the systemic nature of the issue becomes easier to ignore. The far right elsewhere remains but the sense of crisis fades just enough to avoid uncomfortable reforms.
At the center of this dynamic stands the EU’s executive leadership, mainly Ursula von der Leyen and her ideological lackeys in the Commission, who would almost certainly emerge strengthened, not because she has solved Europe’s democratic challenges but because she can plausibly claim progress. This is the quiet irony of such a political transition, a national shift framed as democratic renewal ends up reinforcing the very structures that have struggled to confront democratic backsliding effectively.
None of this is to suggest that change in Hungary would be meaningless. The removal of an entrenched leader carries its own significance, particularly for civil society and political opposition within the country. But meaning is not the same as impact. Without a deeper transformation, one that addresses institutional integrity, media independence and political accountability, the broader European landscape remains largely unchanged.
In the end, Magyar’s victory would reveal something uncomfortable about contemporary European politics, that it is often more adept at managing appearances than resolving contradictions. A new leader in Budapest might close one chapter but it would not rewrite the book.
They sang of heroes And Gods in tribal days, The decadent elegant ways, The empires that rose and fell, The kingdom of God and Loud clanging bells That tolled for them And tolls for us, That prophesied The end of days And golden ways, They sang and Danced in reverie, Celebrations of spring, Of delicate gentle things, Andwith the falling of thesun, They held each other tenderly.
******************************* With a digital painting from Nikos Laios
There is a persistent temptation, when observing Donald Trump, to search for a master plan, to assume that beneath the noise, the contradictions, the abrupt pivots and personal vendettas, there exists some coherent strategic logic. Perhaps, the thinking goes, his apparent isolation, from allies, from institutions, even from consistent ideology, is not a failure but a deliberate posture. A man apart, standing alone against enemies real and imagined, might seem, in certain narratives, like a figure of strength.
But that interpretation requires a level of discipline and foresight that his public life rarely sustains.
Trump’s political persona has long been defined by separation. He distances himself not only from opponents, which is expected in politics but also from those nominally on his side. Advisors are discarded with theatrical regularity. Loyalists become liabilities overnight. Institutions that might otherwise amplify his power, the judiciary, intelligence agencies, even elements of his own party, are recast as adversaries when they fail to align perfectly with his immediate needs.
This is not the isolation of a strategist tightening the circle. It is the isolation of erosion. There is a difference between choosing solitude as a tactic and ending up alone because one cannot maintain trust. The former suggests control; the latter suggests instability. Trump’s version of isolation feels less like a calculated stance and more like a pattern, one that repeats across contexts, from business to politics to personal relationships.
It is, at times, difficult to ignore the possibility that this pattern is not entirely intentional. Observers often debate whether Trump’s behavior reflects cunning or confusion. Is the chaos a smokescreen, or is it simply chaos? The answer may be less flattering than either extreme. What appears as strategy might, in fact, be improvisation elevated to a governing principle. Decisions emerge not from long-term planning but from impulse, grievance, and the immediate emotional landscape.
In such a framework, isolation is almost inevitable. If alliances are contingent on constant affirmation, they cannot endure disagreement. If criticism is always betrayal, then collaboration becomes impossible. Over time, the circle shrinks, not because it is meant to, but because nothing stable can exist within it.
There is also the more uncomfortable question, whether elements of decline, cognitive, physical or both, play a role in amplifying these tendencies. Age alone does not explain erratic behavior, but it can magnify existing traits. What might once have been dismissed as brashness or unconventional thinking can, over time, take on a sharper, more disjointed edge.
Still, reducing Trump to a figure of incapacity risks oversimplifying the phenomenon. His appeal has never depended on coherence. In fact, his unpredictability is part of the attraction. Supporters do not necessarily look for consistency; they look for disruption, for the sense that he operates outside the constraints that bind others.
Yet even disruption has limits. A political figure who cannot maintain durable alliances eventually confronts the structural realities of power. Governments are not built on singular will; they require networks of trust, however fragile. Isolation, when it becomes total, is not strength, it is confinement.
What remains striking about Trump is not merely that he isolates himself, but that he seems to return to that condition repeatedly, as if drawn to it. Whether by design or by default, he inhabits a space where foes are everywhere and allies are temporary. It is a posture that commands attention, certainly, but it also raises a quieter question.
Not whether he stands alone but whether he can stand with anyone at all.
For decades, the Gulf’s aviation success rested on a deceptively simple premise: geography is destiny. Positioned almost perfectly between Europe and Asia, Gulf carriers transformed location into strategy, and strategy into dominance. The hub model perfected in Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi became one of the most efficient systems in modern aviation—built on predictability, connectivity, and scale.
That premise is now under strain.
The current wave of airspace disruptions across the Middle East does more than reroute aircraft. It challenges the foundational logic of the Gulf aviation model itself. When the “middle” of the world becomes operationally unstable, the system built around it begins to fragment.
The Illusion of Fixed Geography
Aviation planners have long relied on great-circle logic—the shortest distance between two points. The Gulf sits squarely on that arc between Europe and Asia. But airspace is not geography; it is permission. And permission is political.
As corridors close or become contested, airlines are forced into longer, fragmented routings—north through Central Asia or south via the Indian Ocean. What was once a seamless transit system becomes a patchwork of contingencies. The result is not just longer flight times, but a fundamental erosion of network efficiency.
Geography, as it turns out, is only an advantage when it is accessible.
Let us also examine the Compounding Cost of Uncertainty: The immediate impacts are measurable: longer sectors, higher fuel burn, disrupted schedules. But the deeper issue is variability. Aviation systems are designed around precision—tight connection banks, optimized crew rotations, high aircraft utilization. Even small deviations cascade.
A two-hour extension on a long-haul sector is not just a cost increase; it is a scheduling disruption that ripples across the network. Aircraft arrive late, connections break, crews time out. What emerges is not a single inefficiency, but systemic friction.
And frictions, in aviation, are expensive – something every pilot or related company leader knows well.
For Gulf carriers—whose business models depend on maximizing connectivity through tightly coordinated hubs—this unpredictability strikes at the core of their operating philosophy. It also highlights the growing importance of efficiency-driven interventions, such as those advanced by Shift Aviation, where trajectory optimization and fuel-efficiency strategies are used to mitigate both cost escalation and environmental impact in increasingly constrained airspace.
More broadly, these dynamics extend beyond aviation alone. They sit at the intersection of global architecture, energy systems, and security considerations. Therefore, initiatives such as those convened by the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG) under the theme “Navigating an Unpredictable Future: Global Architecture, Energy, Security”(thanks to prof. Anis and dr. Philipe) are not only timely, but increasingly necessary to frame and address the systemic risks now shaping global connectivity.
The Fragility of the Hub
The Gulf hub model is one of aviation’s most elegant constructs. It aggregates global demand into a single node, redistributes it efficiently, and does so at scale. But it also depends on one critical assumption: stability.
Remove that, and the model begins to show its fragility. Passengers are highly sensitive to perceived risk and inconvenience. Faced with longer journeys, uncertain connections, or geopolitical concerns, they adapt quickly. Demand shifts. Alternatives emerge. What was once a default routing through the Gulf becomes just one option among many.
In the short term, this manifests as reduced traffic flows and weakened connectivity. In the long term, it risks something more structural: the gradual erosion of the Gulf’s centrality in global aviation.
Is the Rewiring of Asia–Europe Flows urgent? Disruption rarely leaves a vacuum. It redistributes.As Gulf corridors become less reliable, traffic begins to reconfigure. Asian hubs gain relevance. Ultra-long-haul flights—once niche—become more competitive. Airlines with access to alternative airspace gain structural advantages.
What we are witnessing is not just a temporary diversion of traffic, but the early stages of network rebalancing. The highly centralized model of east–west aviation, anchored in the Gulf, is being tested by a more distributed system.
This does not mean the Gulf disappears from the map. But it may no longer sit at its unquestioned center.
What, beyond given geography, would be the Next Strategic Phase? The critical question for Gulf carriers is whether their advantage is inherently geographic—or whether it can evolve beyond geography.
If access to airspace remains uncertain, then location alone is no longer sufficient. Competitive advantage must shift toward resilience, flexibility, and differentiation.
This could take several forms:
Greater investment in ultra-long-haul capabilities to bypass contested regions
Diversification toward origin-and-destination traffic, reducing reliance on transit flows
Network redesign that prioritizes adaptability over maximum efficiency
Strategic partnerships that extend reach beyond the Gulf’s immediate geography
In essence, the model must evolve from one optimized for stability to one designed for volatility.
A System in Transition
The Gulf aviation story has always been one of bold bets—on scale, on service, on the future of global connectivity. Those bets paid off in an era where the skies above the region were reliably open.
Today’s environment is different. Airspace is contested. Predictability is diminished. And the cost of disruption is rising.What hereby emerges is not necessarily decline, but transition.
The next phase of global aviation may be defined less by who sits in the middle of the map, and more by who can navigate its uncertainties. In that world, resilience becomes as valuable as efficiency—and adaptability as important as scale.
The Gulf carriers have rewritten the rules of aviation once before. The question now is whether they can do it again—this time, without relying on geography as their primary advantage.As the founding father of the EU, Jean Monnet used to say, “when you have an unsolvable dilemma, enlarge the context.” Certainly, GAFG and ShiftAviation are part of that context.
Rehan van Tonder, ShiftAviationCEO (GAFG Director)
There’s something almost too neat about JD Vance suddenly becoming the face of America’s most fragile diplomatic file. A vice president once cast as a reluctant defender of foreign wars now finds himself leading negotiations with Iran, long hours, high stakes and no clear victories. If you’re looking for the early scaffolding of a presidential campaign, this is exactly what it looks like.
But let’s not pretend this is purely about statesmanship. Vance’s role in the Iran talks is not accidental. It’s political positioning under the cover of diplomacy. While Donald Trump oscillates between threats, boasts and contradictory messaging about the conflict, Vance occupies a different lane, calmer, quieter and more measured. That contrast matters. It’s not just stylistic; it’s strategic.
Reports suggest Vance was never the loudest cheerleader for the war in the first place. In fact, he was seen as one of the more skeptical voices about deeper U.S. involvement. That skepticism hasn’t disappeared, it’s simply been repackaged. Instead of open dissent, what we’re seeing now is something more subtle, participation without ownership.
That’s a delicate balancing act. Vance is inside the room, leading negotiations, absorbing the credibility that comes with it. But he’s also not the one who launched the conflict, escalated tensions, or made maximalist demands. That distinction could prove invaluable later.
Because let’s be honest, these talks are not going well. The negotiations have so far produced “goodwill” but no deal, despite marathon sessions and heavy diplomatic investment. Iran remains resistant, the ceasefire is shaky, and the broader regional situation is volatile. Even the messaging from Washington has been muddled, with conflicting statements about participation and progress.
In political terms, this is a risky assignment. But it’s also a calculated one. If the talks fail, Vance can point to structural obstacles, Iran’s intransigence, the complexity of the conflict, or even mixed signals from the administration itself. If they succeed, even partially, he can claim credit as the man who stabilized a crisis others inflamed. It’s a classic “heads I win, tails I don’t lose much” scenario.
More interesting, though, is what Vance isn’t saying. There’s been no dramatic break with Trump, no headline-grabbing criticism of the administration’s Iran strategy. Instead, there’s a kind of disciplined silence. And silence, in politics, is rarely neutral. It allows Vance to maintain loyalty while quietly differentiating himself. He doesn’t need to attack Trump’s approach outright, he just needs to embody an alternative.
And that alternative is already taking shape: less bombast, more restraint; less improvisation, more deliberation. The contrast becomes sharper when Trump publicly floats military threats or claims that a deal is practically done, only for reality to say otherwise. In that environment, Vance’s more cautious tone starts to look not just different, but presidential.
Of course, there’s a danger here. Vance could end up owning a failed process, especially if the administration decides to escalate militarily after talks collapse. He’s close enough to be implicated, even if he wasn’t the architect.
But that risk may be precisely the point. Presidential campaigns are rarely built on safe bets. They’re built on visibility, on moments where a politician can step onto the world stage and be seen handling pressure.
That’s what this is. Vance is not openly running, at least not yet. But he’s building a narrative, the skeptic who became the negotiator, the insider who understands the costs of war, the steady hand in a volatile administration.
Whether that narrative holds depends on how this crisis ends. But one thing is already clear: this isn’t just diplomacy. It’s audition.
There was a time when diplomacy moved at the pace of cables, briefings and carefully staged summits, when language was calibrated, ambiguity was strategic and silence itself could be a tool. Then came the era of the thumb, impulsive, immediate and unfiltered. In this new register, Donald Trump did not merely disrupt political norms; he redefined the tempo and tone of global communication, often reducing complex geopolitical realities to bursts of contradiction and spectacle.
The damage is not easily measured in treaties broken or alliances formally dissolved. It is subtler, more corrosive, an erosion of trust, the essential currency of international relations. When messages oscillate between threat and conciliation within hours, when policy appears to be shaped as much by mood as by method, counterparts are left not just wary, but disoriented. Diplomacy depends on predictability, even among adversaries. Trump’s communication style replaced predictability with volatility.
Consider the broader implications of such erratic signaling. In regions already fraught with tension, ambiguity can be dangerous. Words from a U.S. president are not casual remarks; they are signals interpreted by militaries, markets and governments alike. When those signals conflict, the margin for miscalculation widens. A contradictory post about negotiations, whether involving Iran, Pakistan or any other sensitive axis, does not exist in a vacuum. It reverberates through embassies and intelligence briefings, forcing allies to second-guess and adversaries to probe for weakness.
But the consequences extend beyond foreign policy. Trump’s rhetorical style normalized a kind of public discourse that privileges immediacy over accuracy and confidence over coherence. In doing so, it seeped into other domains, education, public health, even civic life. When leaders communicate in absolutes one day and reversals the next, institutions built on expertise begin to appear optional. The result is not merely disagreement, but fragmentation: a public less able to distinguish between informed guidance and performative assertion.
Globally, this fragmentation carries weight. American influence has long rested not only on military or economic power but on the perceived stability of its institutions. When that stability appears compromised—when messaging from the top seems inconsistent or untethered, other nations adjust. Some hedge, forming new alliances or strengthening regional blocs. Others exploit the uncertainty, advancing their own agendas in the gaps left by a distracted or unpredictable superpower.
Prosperity, too, is affected. Markets thrive on clarity, or at least on patterns they can interpret. Sudden shifts in tone, threats of tariffs followed by reversals, praise for adversaries followed by condemnation, introduce a kind of noise that complicates decision-making for businesses and governments alike. Investment hesitates. Long-term planning becomes more cautious, more fragmented, more defensive.
To frame all of this as the product of a single individual’s “thumbs” may seem reductive, but it captures something essential about the moment: the compression of consequence. In earlier eras, the machinery of governance filtered impulse through layers of deliberation. In Trump’s case, that machinery often appeared bypassed, or at least overshadowed, by direct communication channels that rewarded speed and provocation over reflection.
The danger, then, is not only in what was said, but in how it reshaped expectations. If global leadership becomes synonymous with unpredictability, if contradiction is recast as strategy rather than instability, the norms that underpin cooperation begin to fray. And once frayed, they are not easily restored.
History will likely debate the extent of the damage, parsing policy outcomes and geopolitical shifts. But the tonal shift, the sense that the world’s most powerful office could speak in bursts of contradiction and still be taken seriously, may prove to be one of the more enduring legacies. In diplomacy, as in life, words matter. When they lose their weight, so too does the fragile architecture they are meant to support.
There is something outright absurd about commemorating the International Day for Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace at a moment when the very idea of diplomacy feels not just strained but openly disregarded. The phrase itself carries a certain polished optimism, the kind favoured in conference halls with soft lighting and carefully worded communiqués. Yet outside those rooms, the world appears to be operating on an entirely different script.
Consider the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, now less a conflict and more a grinding demonstration of endurance, attrition, and geopolitical stubbornness. Diplomacy has not disappeared here; it lingers in the background like a forgotten understudy, occasionally stepping forward for brief, tentative appearances before being ushered offstage by missiles and mobilizations. Negotiation exists, but it is tentative, conditional, and often overshadowed by the louder language of force.
At the same time, tensions between the United States and Iran oscillate between icy silence and sudden escalation, as though both sides are locked in a ritual they no longer fully control. Each gesture, whether conciliatory or confrontational, seems calibrated less for resolution and more for signalling strength. Diplomacy, in this context, risks becoming performative, a series of moves designed to maintain posture rather than produce peace.
And then there is Israel’s increasingly aggressive posture toward its neighbours, a dynamic that further complicates an already volatile region. Here, the rhetoric of security and survival often eclipses the possibility of mutual understanding. The cycle is familiar, provocation, retaliation, justification and repeat. Diplomacy is invoked frequently, but more as a shield for action than as a genuine pathway toward de-escalation.
What unites these disparate conflicts is not merely their severity, but the way they expose a deeper erosion of trust in multilateral frameworks. Institutions designed to mediate, to convene, to restrain, these are still in place, but their authority feels diminished. Agreements are reached and then questioned. Norms are cited and then bent. The rules-based order, once presented as a stabilizing force, now appears negotiable, contingent, and, at times, selectively applied.
It would be easy, perhaps too easy, to dismiss the International Day for Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace as a hollow gesture, a symbolic nod to ideals that no longer carry weight. But that interpretation, while tempting, risks missing something important. The persistence of such a day, however disconnected it may seem from reality, reflects a stubborn refusal to abandon the concept of diplomacy altogether. It is less a celebration than a reminder, an insistence that the alternative, a world governed entirely by unilateral action and perpetual conflict, is not one we can afford to normalize.
Still, reminders alone are insufficient. Diplomacy cannot survive as a ceremonial language spoken only on designated days. It requires credibility, consistency and above all, a willingness among powerful actors to accept constraints on their own behaviour. Without that, multilateralism becomes little more than a rhetorical device, invoked when convenient and ignored when inconvenient.
So yes, there is a dissonance, sharp and undeniable, between the ideals embodied in this international observance and the realities unfolding across the globe. Calling it a “joke” captures the frustration, but perhaps not the full picture. It is not a joke so much as a paradox: a solemn recognition of peace in an era increasingly defined by its absence.
And perhaps that is precisely why it persists. Not because the world is peaceful, but because it is not and because, despite everything, the idea of diplomacy remains too necessary to discard, even when it feels least convincing.
Could Oba Ladoja be part of a plot to impeach a governor who is almost at the end of his tenure? He himself having suffered that indignity when he was governor of the state.
Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, is not new to political upheavals. The sprawling ancient city was home to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first premier of the Western Region. Ibadan was started by warriors who proved their mettle in defending the Yoruba land from marauding Fulani warriors. Ibadan also has a proud legacy, “ija’gboro larun Ibadan,” meaning street brawling is the legacy of Ibadan. Ibadan saw a huge political fight of seismic proportions when the feud between the departing first premier of the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and his successor led to a declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region and subsequent massive election rigging, which snowballed into the tragic three-year civil war in Nigeria. It all began in Ibadan at the very Secretariat built by Chief Awolowo and used today by the governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde. Seyi Makinde, an indigene of the city, is governor of Oyo State.
But Seyi Makinde has no blood of Awolowo in his veins. Awolowo was a statesman; Seyi Makinde is a politician. Awolowo does not play games; Seyi Makinde is a game player who gambles with the destiny of the people of Oyo. Awolowo was a goal getter with an unequalled record for the rapid progress of his people in the Western Region; Seyi Makinde is in the class of late Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, a rabble-rouser who revels in power. Akintola was a grassroots politician who told lies to deceive the people to keep them following him. Seyi Makinde is also a rabble-rouser, a man who hugs Klieglight and would not mind lying.
Akintola begged Awolowo to succeed him, something which Awolowo did not want to do because of Akintola’s well-known lackluster performance. But Awolowo had to bend to pressure from some elders of the region in a compromise, probably for the first time in his life. He yielded power to Akintola, who immediately went for the jugular of the leader of their party, the Action Group (AG). Akintola would no longer be subject to party discipline and control until he caused mayhem, which disrupted all that the AG had achieved.
If tradition is kept in Oyo State, which inherited the secretariat infrastructure that Awolowo built, Seyi Makinde will be sitting on the table and chair that Awolowo sat on, which Samuel Ladoke Akintola also inherited and sat on. Seyi Makinde is the reincarnation of the late Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Seyi Makinde seems to have attended the political school of Akintola and graduated with flying colours.
The conflicting colours that Seyi Makinde wears are likely to snowball again into big problems in Ibadan of seismic proportions. Just as Tafawa Balewa, the first prime minister of Nigeria at independence, had a hand in the crisis that brewed between Akintola and Awolowo, where Akintola was used in an attempt to dislodge Awolowo from his confrontational politics against oppressors, today’s president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, a man best described in Machiavellian terms, is at the center of a row that may terminate the current democracy as it did that of the first republic. God forbid, but the nation must not fold its arms.
Other dramatis personae in the unfolding crisis are the Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Rasidi Ladoja; Mrs. Florence Ajimobi, wife of the former governor of the state, late Ishaq Ajimobi, who gave the baton to Seyi Makinde as governor; the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Adeboye Ogundoyin, who became speaker at 32 and has done seven years as speaker; the Chief Whip of the Assembly, Gbenga Oyekola; the dictator, Seyi Makinde, whose word is law in Oyo State; and Ayodele Fayose, former governor of Ekiti State. Especially hilarious in the drama is the posture of Gbenga Oyekola, the chief whip, who described the governor, Seyi Makinde, as his “boss.”
He issued a statement on social media about a meeting that was held between Seyi Makinde and the legislators in the governor’s house. It is important to note that Seyi Makinde does not live in government quarters but in his own house in an estate called Kolapo Ishola. So imagine that the House of Assembly building had shrunk and was not able to contain the legislatures, and so they moved to the private house of the governor. After the meeting held around April 14, both the Speaker and the Chief Whip issued statements. The speaker said he had gone to the palace of Oba Ladoja to seek his support for a governorship ambition he nursed. During the visit, Ladoja asked him to help impeach Seyi Makinde and he will help him to clinch the House of Representatives constituency. Ladoja also offered him an unnamed huge sum of money.
Speaker Ogundoyin’s statement will probably be acceptable to the Mongols. He was the one seeking Oba Ladoja’s help, and now it was Oba Ladoja begging him to impeach Seyi Makinde with the offer of a seat in the House of Representatives and huge cash. Mind you, Ladoja is not from Ibarapa, from where the Speaker hails. Meanwhile, the son of Oba Ladoja, Sola, has disclosed that it was Ogundoyin who begged him to take him to Oba Ladoja. The statement of Gbenga Oyekola was no less amusing and illogical. After their meeting with the governor, he narrated the story of the speaker and how he rejected the huge sum of money and how he, as a member of the House Assembly, will never betray his “boss,” Seyi Makinde. This was a man elected into the assembly to provide checks and balances to the governor. How much worse flattery and servitude can be. A logical analysis is that both statements were part of a plot to undo the Olubadan and get to Senator Sharafadeen Alli.
Meanwhile, Ayo Fayose, himself a terrible character, had alerted the whole state that there was a plan being hatched to dethrone Oba Ladoja, an alert which both the Oba and the government of Seyi Makinde denied. Seyi Makinde had tried to scheme out Sharafadeen Alli, the consensus APC candidate for the Oyo gubernatorial race in 2027. He had commanded the Olubadan to coronate Sharafadeen and two others as part of the lesser obas in the city, a very unpopular thing among the indigenes. Sharafadeen and his two colleagues Obas had refused to attend the coronation, giving excuses, but Seyi Makinde went ahead, absenting himself but sending his deputy to do the coronation. The scheme is that Sharafadeen cannot be an oba and politician at the same time. How the government thinks it could coronate the obas that have no traditional bearing with the obas concerned, who were not in attendance, and whose governor also didn’t attend is a bitter pill to swallow.
It may look odd to the indigenes of Ibadan; it may look odd to Oba Ladoja and to his council of chiefs, but not to Seyi Makinde. Seyi Makinde is ambitious; he wants to be vice president to Atiku Abubakar. He has pledged to deliver Oyo State to Atiku and allegedly promised 10 billion naira as a gift. People are saying this money will come from the Oyo State purse, where the governor has been spending freely in recent weeks. A top-weight politician told this reporter that Seyi Makinde bought 351 cars for all the councillors in the state, for 26 million naira each, and power bikes for all the ward chairmen in the state who are not in the employ of the government, at 6 million naira a bike. The politician said Seyi Makinde was just trying to justify spending the huge money now available to him as part of the Tinubu largesse after he removed the subsidy on oil.
Sharafadeen Alli, the APC consensus candidate for the Oyo governorship contest who is at the center of the crisis also accused the governor, Seyi Makinde of spending 1.5 billion naira on the failed coronation. He said the purpose of what he called wasteful spending is not for the coronation but for Seyi Makinde to make an expenditure in order to allegedly pilfer money he will use for the 2027 elections. Seyi Makinde was suspected to be angling to coronate Sharafadeen Alli so as to edge him out of the gubernatorial contest. The Oyo state law is that an oba cannot participate in politics.
Could Oba Ladoja be part of a plot to impeach a governor who is almost at the end of his tenure? He himself having suffered that indignity when he was governor of the state, an indignity he suffered in the hand of a totalitarian power monger, Olusegun Obasanjo, president between 1999 and 2007. Nothing is beyond politicians in the pursuit of their selfish interests. Oba Ladoja may want to be grateful to Tinubu, who sponsored his legal defense from the High Court to the Supreme Court in his impeachment, a case Ladoja won. Tinubu, now having offended Nigerians with his harsh and inhumane policies, is hell-bent on winning a second term by all means. So Ladoja is a nice catch for him to win all Yoruba states to counterbalance the North East and North West who are pushing their people to punish Tinubu with their votes because he has cut them off from their traditional means of making money through government appointments denied to them.
Currently, two Yoruba states are not in the hands of the APC, Oyo and Osun states. Osun is difficult because the governor of the state is loved by the people, having been seen to have performed. So Oyo State is a battle that Tinubu must win. Seyi Makinde, rather than deploy resources to electricity and quality education, has neglected these vital areas and goes on populist programs like payment of salaries and pensions, which are good and a must, but electricity and education will guarantee the development and the future of the state. He could do both, but he has decided to concentrate on one and store up money for his vice presidential ambitions in 2027.
What about Mrs. Ajimobi? Nobody should put anything beyond her. She has just been appointed an ambassador to Austria, and she will want to show gratitude to President Tinubu for the appointment as well as revenge for the defeat of the candidate of her late husband in the 2023 election. The winner of that election was Seyi Makinde. Whatever the reason, the state is bigger than anybody, and a collapse of it is dangerous to all politicians. If they keep this in mind, they will prevent a repeat of the calamity that Akintola engineered through his unbridled ambition. If they don’t, the nation will suffer once again.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
