Makinde visits Tinubu at Aso Rock amid PDP leadership crisis

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde on Thursday paid a visit to President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Makinde arrived shortly after Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had entered the State House and headed straight to the president’s office.

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga confirmed the meeting on Thursday.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a closed door discussion with Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde at Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday,” Onanuga captioned pictures shared on X.

The Oyo governor is one of the five PDP governors, popularly known as the G5, who openly opposed the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate in the build-up to the 2023 elections and subsequently backed Tinubu’s candidacy.

The G5 governors had argued that, based on PDP’s zoning arrangement, power should have returned to the South after former President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight-year tenure in the North.

The other members of the group were former Rivers State Governor and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike, ex-Benue Governor Samuel Ortom, former Enugu Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and ex-Abia Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.

However, relations between Makinde and Wike have soured.

Makinde recently disclosed that the fallout stemmed from a comment allegedly made by Wike during a meeting with Tinubu, where he allegedly pledged to “deliver” the PDP to the president ahead of the 2027 elections — a move Makinde said was done without consulting other party leaders.

As of the time of filing this report, details of Makinde’s meeting with President Tinubu had not been disclosed.

The Star