N300B Loan: Michael Ogunsina, A Busybody, Spreading False Propaganda, Half-truths And Outright Lies |By Sola Abegunde

I just finished listening to the Michael Ogunsina interview on a popular radio programme titled ‘TIWA LOSELU’.

Michael Ogunsina is the current publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State.

Actually, I tuned to the programme midway, but I heard enough to amuse myself.

Two issues were discussed on the programme, at least from when I tuned in to the end of the programme.

The controversial approval of a 300 billion Naira loan by the Oyo State House of Assembly a couple of weeks ago and the ‘peculiar mess’ the Peoples Democratic Party currently finds itself in.

Unlike Michael Ogunsina, I will not busy myself with the self-inflicted disaster currently bedevilling the PDP.

I am not a member of the party, and whatever they choose to do with their party at the centre is not my problem.

However, I am amused that Michael Ogunsina just discovered that the current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and former Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, ‘should not be taken seriously’.

In fact, Michael Ogunsina implied that Nyesom Wike is a ‘drunkard’ who is always ‘affected by the thing he drinks’.

Governor Seyi Makinde has successfully infected Michael Ogunsina with the spirit of hypocrisy.

It takes only a fool to believe that Governor Makinde is completely exonerated from the disastrous condition the PDP has fallen in, while Nyesom Wike is the ‘devil’ who single-handedly ruined the party.

In Michael Ogunsina’s consciousness, the events leading to the 2023 general election in Nigeria are completely erased, and he thinks all of us are confused like him.

I wonder how he wants us to forget Governor Seyi Makinde’s active roles within the G-5.

The PDP died in 2019, and Seyi Makinde and others will forever be remembered as the undertakers who saw to the death of the party.

Like I said, I don’t want to be a busybody like the Oyo PDP spokesperson.

If they like, they can set fire to their political party.

Let me now address his submissions regarding the 300 billion Naira loan misadventures.

I have been on a radio station with Michael Ogunsina once.

I have equally listened to his series of interviews and read some of his press statements.

I have said this once, and I wish to repeat it for emphasis’ sake.

Michael Ogunsina is a very brilliant young man.

Unfortunately, he has fallen into the wrong hands, and unknowingly to him, his indiscretions are reshaping his instincts.

Honestly, there is nothing he can do to validly defend the Oyo State House of Assembly and Governor Seyi Makinde in this unfortunate drama, and I expect him to know this, except my perception of him as a brilliant person is wrong.

Hon. Shittu Ibrahim took the discussions beyond the pedestrian level at which the Oyo State House of Assembly, the Governor, Ogunsina and some radio presenters wish to put it.

Hon. Shittu raised some allegations and asserted that he has documents to back them up.

In the first instance, Shittu’s allegations are beyond the 300 billion naira.

He alleged that a particular loan of 200b Naira was purportedly approved on May 13, 2025, without a notice of plenary.

He alleged that he only saw that a sitting of the Oyo State House of Assembly purportedly approved the loan of 200b on the date through the votes and proceedings of the sitting of the House that followed the mysterious previous sitting where the loan of 200b was purportedly approved.

No one has talked about these grave allegations, and I don’t blame Michael Ogunsina.

With due respect to everyone concerned, the media in Oyo State really need to sit up.

I give kudos to the few personalities who have kept maintaining high standards, but honestly, we have a big problem.

Hon. Shittu also challenged the purported notice of plenary which the Majority Leader pushed out.

From the content of the purported WhatsApp record from the Majority Leader, no sitting of the Oyo State House of Assembly was held on Tuesday, 16th of August, 2025, as claimed.

That claim by the Majority Leader is fraudulent on the face of the defects on the records from the WhatsApp message.

Hon. Shittu also alleged that the Oyo State House of Assembly has been approving loans for the governor without attachments.

Only the Oyo State House of Assembly and the Governor can validly confirm or deny these allegations, and they seem to have taken their mouths to the ‘alagbafo’. (The washerman).

Or, better still, they have admitted the facts as claimed by Hon. Shittu Ibrahim.

I noticed that Michael Ogunsina has been running around radio stations very recently.

The question is, what is his business?

He is not a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly, talk less of him being the spokesperson for the House.

He is not a member of the Oyo State Executive Council, who was directed to address the issues.

So, where is the locus standi to discuss the sensitive issues in question?

Let’s look at Ogunsina’s position.

He claimed Governor Makinde inherited a total debt profile totalling 148.7b Naira from past administrations as of 2019, and that is the only truth in his submissions.

He thereafter went on a voyage of telling a string of half-truths and outright lies by claiming that the Oyo State Government is currently owing 150.7b.

It is on record that in 2025 alone, the Oyo State House of Assembly had approved the following loans for Governor Makinde:

200b Naira (purportedly approved on the 13th of May, 2025).

55 Million Euros (French Treasury concessional loan), July 14-15, 2025.

August 19th and 26th, 2025, 300b Naira.

Hon. Shittu raised issues about a loan of about 110b naira from Afribank.

The above-mentioned loan amounts are apart from the 10b Naira on July 2019, 7.6b Naira on October 2019, 20b Naira on May 19, 2020, 100b Naira on August 24, 2020, 22.5b Naira on October 2025, 6b Naira on Aug 2021, 18.7b Naira on October 2021, 2b on June 2022, 50b Naira on April 6-7, 2023, 2b Naira from Fidelity Bank on May 2024, and 50b Naira (revolving overdraft) on Sept 6, 2023.

The reasonable question anyone would want to ask Michael Ogunsina is how the subtotal of the above-enumerated loan amounts would be 150.7b Naira, which he claimed represents the figures of the debts incurred by the Makinde Government.

We are not even talking about the loans borrowed and attached to the purses of the 33 local governments.

I have alleged that Governor Seyi Makinde has not limited his reckless borrowings to the state alone.

He has also involved the 33 local governments.

Michael Ogunsina needs to examine himself.

He had the studio to himself, and the anchor of the programme, with due respect to him, gave him so much freedom.

How could a reasonable person believe that the 149 billion naira, which is supposedly meant for debt refinancing out of the 300 billion naira in controversy, is actually meant to finance the 148.7 billion inherited debts of 2019, as claimed by Ogunsina?

Only a moron would believe that, and I challenge Governor Makinde to show us the documents that support Michael Ogunsina’s warped opinion.

Again, how will a sensible person take Ogunsina’s opinion about the exchange rates and the inherited debts seriously?

Is he trying to tell us that Governor Makinde has refused to honour the terms of repaying back the inherited loan amounts between 2019 and 2023 when the exchange rates went up?

What were the terms of the repayments of the inherited loans such that Ogunsina is still trying to tell us that they still remain intact at the same figures in 2025?

Is it that those who granted the loans decided not to take them back until exchange rates go up?

In fact, it befits everyone to complain about the price of dye except the bed-wetter. (O ye eni gbogbo ko dinwo aro, ko ye atosile).

Governor Seyi Makinde, from verifiable records, between 2019 and now, had borrowed over a trillion Naira.

A member of the Oyo State House of Assembly has come forward to raise an alarm about the methods of approving the loans in question.

Not only that, but he gave accurate information about the fact that due process was not followed by the Oyo State House of Assembly and Governor Makinde in obtaining approvals for the loans in question, and yet, Michael Ogunsina thinks these are matters that should be trivialised?

I saw that Ogunsina, the PDP and Governor Seyi Makinde are still being haunted by their phobia for the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

It’s unfortunate that they can’t seem to focus on issues and leave the late governor out of their failures several years after his demise.

May I say that unlike Governor Seyi Makinde, Ajimobi and past governors didn’t cripple local governments, and neither did they take loans tied to the resources of the 33 local governments.

I seriously fear for the PDP spokesperson.

There used to be one before him who was synonymous with lies and noise-making.

Ogunsina has beaten his records.

When he said that the Moniya/Iseyin road was comatose as of the time Governor Makinde took over in 2019, I saw the extent to which the young man would go to advertise his desperation.

Everyone knows that the contract for the road had been awarded by Ajimobi, and contractors were on site in 2019 before Governor Makinde cancelled the initial contract and awarded it to another contractor with the contract sum increased by about 2b Naira.

He also claimed that Governor Makinde increased Oyo’s IGR.

He would have been good if he stopped at that but decided to spice it up by saying Governor Makinde didn’t increase tax burdens on the people.

That is a lie from the pit of hell.

Presently, Okada riders in Oyo State are going through hell.

They are groaning under the weights of the imposition of different levies through tickets, compulsory payments for jackets at ridiculously high prices (about 15 thousand Naira), and compulsory payments of thousands of Naira for waste baskets which are not given to them.

Keke Maruwa drivers and other transporters are not left out of these multiple levies.

No wonder PMS officials are now proud owners of hotels all over the state.

As brilliant as Michael Ogunsina appears to be, his undoing is the fact that he always gets carried away by the unfettered space and freedom he always enjoyed on Radio.

I was surprised when I heard him say the Ido/Eruwa road is one of the laudable projects of the Makinde Government.

He got so carried away and forgot that just a couple of months ago, Governor Makinde not only admitted his failures about the same road but was also embarrassed to the extent that he had to beg that if he doesn’t complete the project within eleven months, he should not be allowed to enter Eruwa.

At any rate, nothing is happening at the place as I am writing this piece.

Ogunsina was taken up about the repayment plans for the loans obtained by the Makinde Government, and he dodged the question.

Unfortunately, he got his face saved because the presenter didn’t follow up.

I am surprised that Ogunsina did not list the bus terminals built with billions of Naira in loans as one of the laudable projects of Governor Makinde.

He also didn’t list the Light Up Oyo.

A contract was awarded for 28b Naira, and the contract was later varied to almost 40b Naira, but which the governor himself admitted that the contractor failed to deliver the terms in less than two years of delivery!

He did not talk about the sham that the Agbowo Shopping Complex has become, courtesy of Governor Seyi Makinde.

While it is good to dramatise his feelings each time he rode on the Circular Road in his car, Michael didn’t address Governor Makinde’s insistence on grabbing about 450 metres of citizens’ land on either side of the road and its negative consequences on about 4,000 house owners covering about four local governments.

According to Ogunsina, any time he was in his car on the Circular Road, his mind always prayed for Governor Makinde.

Will the feelings be the same for the over 4,000 homeowners who will be dispossessed of their houses by Governor Seyi Makinde?

I would like to round up by saying that I saw a video of the interview by the Minority Leader of the Oyo State House of Assembly.

Honestly, I see no substance in his submissions.

He cut the picture of a fish out of water.

I would like him to go through the comments of the people who responded to his interview and reflect upon them.

His history is unfolding before his own eyes, and it is evident in the responses of the people to his interview.

SOLA ABEGUNDE.