Makinde had left Ibadan as early as 8am to honour the programme billed to commence by 11am but the station hurriedly shut doors against him upon arrival.
His convoy had arrived the station at about 10:50am for the scheduled live interview programme but was flagged down and told that ‘the management had put the programme on hold.’
Parrot FM is owned by a former governor of the state, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, who recently aligned his political structure with the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, after a parley he had with the APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The General Manager of the station, Mr Ademola Adeniyi, who conveyed the message to the PDP governorship candidate, said he received the “message from the administration department who invited Makinde and his APC counterpart, Adelabu.”
Adeniyi insisted that he had a mandate that Makinde be recorded, to give room for the interview of Adelabu, who was being expected at the time.
The development angered Makinde’s Director of Media, Mr. Dotun Oyelade who questioned Adeniyi on the sudden change of agreement from a live interview to a recorded programme.
The PDP governorship candidate later issued a statement wherein he decried the last-minute stoppage of a live interview programme, which he claimed he paid for.
The statement from his campaign organisation, signed by Oyelade, claimed that Makinde had booked and paid for the one-hour slot, 48 hours in advance and came to Ogbomoso for the programme only to be turned back at the gate with the excuse that the slot had been allocated to his rival, Mr Bayo Adelabu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress.
Makinde told journalists and his teeming supporters that apart from being unconstitutional, it was democratically repugnant for anyone to deny the other the right of reply.
He said Akala did not want him to expose him any further to the true reason why he joined the APC, a move that had diminished his political rating significantly.
Makinde promised to bring the attention of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission to the incident.
He told the former governor, “You can bar me from your radio station, but you cannot debar me from the Government House if it is the wish of the Lord and the people.”
He later went to Ajilete FM, also in Ogbomoso where he fielded questions in a live interview programme of the station.
Punch
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