JUST IN: Fix Oyo First – Presidency Tackles Makinde Over Attack on Tinubu

The Nigerian Presidency has tackled the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, following his criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s administration regarding the proposed implementation of state police.

The presidency’s response was contained in a statement on Friday by the President’s Special Adviser on Social Media, Dada Olusegun.

Recall that on Thursday Governor Seyi Makinde urged the federal government to stop deceiving Nigerians over the creation of state police. He insisted that state governments already possess the power to establish their own policing structures through local legislation.

Governor Makinde made the assertions during the governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives, and House of Assembly primaries of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) held at the Watershed Celebration Centre in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Addressing party members and delegates at the event, the governor reflected on the establishment of the Western Nigeria Security Network, codenamed Amotekun, across the South-west, describing the outfit as a fallback option after initial efforts to establish state police failed.

According to him, the regional security outfit was created by South-west states through laws passed by their respective Houses of Assembly—a legislative process he argued could also be adopted for establishing full state police.

“Some people will know insecurity was one of the major pillars of this administration when we established Omitutun phase one and phase two, and it will remain a major pillar. Before this government’s emergence, there was nothing like Amotekun in Oyo State. We wanted state police. It was because we couldn’t get the state police that we established Amotekun as a stopgap. They should stop wasting Nigerians’ time,” Governor Makinde stated.

“We know how we established Amotekun. The Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly is here. We passed a common law in the whole of the Southwest. The whole Houses of Assembly in all states in the Southwest passed the law, and that led to the creation of Amotekun.

“The only state that didn’t create Amotekun is Lagos State, and we know it is because their boss didn’t want Amotekun,” he said.

Replying via a post on his X handle, presidential aide Dada Olusegun accused Governor Makinde of using the federal government as a scapegoat to deflect from the rising insecurity and underfunding plaguing his own state.

He said:

Gov. Seyi Makinde’s recent outburst accusing President Tinubu of “wasting time” on State Police and claiming Lagos boycotted Amotekun for political points is just a masterclass in deflection. When a Governor is grappling with rising insecurity in his own state, the instinct to scapegoat the center is predictable.

Makinde claims Lagos ignored Amotekun to appease PBAT is entirely False with the President being the one of the voices that clamoured for a local security network to aid the federal efforts on Security.

Makinde praises Amotekun as his glorious “stop-gap,” yet the reality in Oyo is tragic underfunding. While Lagos mobilizes billions for the welfare and resources of all security apparatus in Lagos state, Oyo sends brave Amotekun operatives into forests with pump-action rifles to fight AK-47-wielding syndicates. Press conferences don’t buy ballistic vests.

If Gov. Makinde cannot adequately finance, equip, and manage his own regional vigilante group, how does he plan to shoulder the colossal financial burden of a full-fledged State Police? State policing requires forensic labs, armories, pensions, and unassailable funding, not just loud rhetoric.

President Tinubu understands that constitutional security reform requires meticulous legality and rigid economic frameworks, not rushed politics to distract from local failures.

Before lecturing the architect of Nigeria’s most successful security funding model, Gov. Makinde owes the people of Oyo State a duty of care. Elevate Amotekun from a poorly funded political prop into a tactically superior force. Until then, the lectures remain hollow.
Fix Oyo first!!!”