Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde has publicly disputed a claim by FCT Minister Nyesom Wike that President Bola Tinubu’s administration gave Oyo State ₦50 billion to fund the ongoing upgrade of the Ladoke Akintola International Airport in Ibadan, insisting the project is being financed entirely with state resources.
The disagreement burst into the open on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, when Makinde addressed the claim directly at the APM North-West Town Hall Meeting held at the Paragon Events Centre in Katsina. Makinde, who is now the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, told the gathering he had been made aware of comments Wike made during a television interview in which the FCT minister said Tinubu provided ₦50 billion to help Oyo State upgrade the Ibadan airport to international standards.
His response was blunt. “I want to say that that claim is false,” Makinde said, adding that the president did not give him or Oyo State ₦50 billion for the airport project. He maintained that the Ibadan Airport upgrade is being undertaken 100 per cent with funds belonging to Oyo State.
Where the claim came from
Wike’s original comments were made a day earlier, on Monday, during an appearance on TVC’s Journalists’ Hangout programme. Wike had been responding to suggestions that he was the only member of the former PDP G5 governors benefiting from the Tinubu administration, telling his interviewers that Tinubu’s government provided ₦50 billion to support Makinde’s plan to upgrade the Oyo airport into an international airport. By his account, that gesture was proof that federal largesse toward the old G5 bloc wasn’t confined to him alone.
Legit.ng reported that Makinde called the claim false during the Katsina meeting, describing it in plain terms rather than diplomatic hedging. The governor made clear he was not going to let the assertion stand unchallenged, given how directly it touched on his administration’s signature infrastructure project and, by extension, his credibility as he positions himself for a 2027 presidential run.
A project years in the making
The dispute is playing out against the backdrop of a real, ongoing airport project, one Makinde has invested heavily in politically and financially since his first term. He flagged off the upgrade of the Samuel Ladoke Akintola Airport in September 2024 at an initial cost of ₦41 billion, with the domestic terminal completed in October 2025. Long before the current funding row, Wike himself had shown up in Ibadan to celebrate milestones on the airport’s development. As far back as 2023, while both men were still allies within the PDP’s G5 bloc, Wike joined Makinde to commission an aviation fuel depot and an access road at the airport site, praising the Oyo governor’s infrastructure drive and telling residents that “one good turn deserves another.”
That history of cooperation makes the current spat notable. Wike and Makinde were both part of the so-called G5, sometimes called the Integrity Group, five PDP governors (alongside Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Samuel Ortom of Benue and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu) who broke ranks with the party’s leadership ahead of the 2023 elections over the choice of Atiku Abubakar as presidential candidate. Wike eventually joined the Tinubu-led federal government as FCT Minister, while Makinde stayed in Oyo and has since positioned himself as an opposition figure heading into 2027, now running under the APM banner. Their political paths have diverged sharply since then, and the airport funding claim is only the latest flashpoint between two men who once shared a stage as allies.
Wider political undertones
Beyond the naira figures, the disagreement carries an unmistakable political charge. The controversy comes against the backdrop of ongoing debate over the transmission of presidential powers, following President Tinubu’s extended vacation without a public declaration transferring authority to Vice-President Kashim Shettima. Makinde used the same Katsina town hall to weigh in on that separate issue, and used the broader event to present his party’s “Reset Nigeria Agenda,” a policy platform aimed at Nigeria’s economic and educational challenges ahead of the 2027 polls.
For Wike, the ₦50 billion claim served a specific political purpose: rebutting the narrative that he alone among former G5 governors has profited from proximity to the Tinubu government. For Makinde, denying it just as forcefully serves his own purpose, protecting the image of an administration-funded, homegrown infrastructure success story, free of any suggestion that it depends on federal favour.
As of now, neither the Presidency nor the Ministry of Aviation has issued an official statement confirming or denying whether ₦50 billion was released to Oyo State for the airport project. Wike has not publicly responded to Makinde’s rebuttal. Until one side produces documentation, the disagreement remains a matter of one governor’s word against a sitting minister’s, playing out in the full glare of pre-2027 politics.
