An Arise TV journalist, Reuben Abati, has claimed that Seyi Makinde is ‘the only Governor to have broken the jinx of a second term in office in Oyo State.’
Abati made the claim in a backpage article published on June 11, 2024 in THISDAY newspaper titled “A Day with Seyi Tinubu”.
He wrote:
“Seyi Makinde is the Governor of Oyo State (PDP), the only Governor to have broken the jinx of a second term in office in Oyo State. Elected in 2019, he has just completed the first year of his second term in that office.
“Previous Governors in that state before him since Bola Ige in the Second Republic, Omololu Olunloyo, Lam Adesina, Rasheed Ladoja, Adebayo Alao-Akala, Abiola Ajimobi did only one term in office. I spent last Saturday as his guest in Oyo state along with other colleagues.”
CLAIM
Seyi Makinde is the only Governor to have broken the jinx of a second term in office in Oyo State.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show the claim is FALSE.
After spending four years as Oyo State governor, Makinde won his re-relection bid in the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial election held in the state.
Makinde who contested under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in 31 local government areas of the state with a total of 563,756 votes to defeat his closest rival, Teslim Folarin of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who won in two local government areas and scored 256,685 votes.
He first got elected into the Office of the Governor of Oyo State in 2019.
But findings by The FactCheckHub show that Abiola Ajimobi who got re-elected for a second term in 2015 was the first person to break the jinx and not Seyi Makinde. Before him, all the previous governors who had led the state since the advent of the Fourth Republic lost their second-term bids.
For instance, Lam Adesina of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) party served for just a term from 1999 to 2003. Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja of the PDP replaced him from 2003 to 2007.
Also, Christopher Alao-Akala, served as the state governor from January to December 2006 for the period when he was impeached but later reinstated.
Alao-Akala won the primaries and contested in the 2007 election, for which he emerged victorious and served till 2011. He lost his second-term bid to Abiola Ajimobi of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
The late Ajimobi is the first governor to win a second-term re-election bid in Oyo State. He served two terms from 2011 to 2019, after which he contested for senatorial position and lost. This contravenes Abati’s claim that Makinde is the first to break the jinx.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Seyi Makinde is the only Governor to have broken the jinx of a second term in office in Oyo State is FALSE; the late Abiola Ajimobi governed the state for two terms between 2011-2019.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
