Bimbo Adekanmbi: Looking beneath the surface By Jide Ajayi

In his recent newsletter, Governor Seyi Makinde noted that he was close to naming his candidate for Governorship elections. According to him, May is the month of decision.

He said there are frontrunners. One of the frontrunners is one person who allegedly is the candidate of Seye Famojuro, an ally of His Excellency Seyi Makinde, that candidate is Bimbo Adekanmbi, who served under Governor Abiola Ajimobi.
In that Government, Adekanmbi served as Commissioner for Finance and Budget Planning. What many may not know is that he entered that government as Deputy Chief of Staff in the first tenure. This was after his relationship with the daughter of Governor Abiola Ajimobi (the late Abisola Abiola Ajimobi) had ended.
The mention of Bimbo Adekanmbi is further creating divide in PDP circles as many are wondering how someone who resigned from the APC in October 2025 and defected to the PDP in December of the same year, can be a governorship frontrunner in April 2026. The answer appears tied back to the person putting him forward.

Yet, it will be unfair to write Bimbo Adekanmbi off, simply because of when he joined the PDP. The bigger question is, does he have the competence to take over from Seyi Makinde and run the affairs of Oyo State with a similar vision. This is the time to interrogate Mr Adekanmbi’s CV.

What Bimbo Adekanmbi’s CV shows
He graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University in 1998. He was classmates with Otunba Segun Ogunwuyi, Governor Seyi Makinde’s current Chief of Staff. But a few years later, he was at Oxford Brookes, England where he again got another BSc in Applied Accounting. This could suggest he graduated with a Third Class from OAU.

Also, his work experience as shown on his CV looks formidable, on the surface. You find Accenture, Birmingham City Council, B&G and others prominently mentioned. But when you interrogate this CV further you see gaps which you may not be able to ignore. His roles are written as:

• “IBM for Department for Transport (DfT), UK”
• “Accenture for BG Group”
• “XANSA Consulting for B&Q / Kingfisher IT”
A non-technical reader will read: “Accenture, IBM, Verizon…” and assume: “He worked at all these companies”
When the reality may be:
“He worked on projects where these companies were involved”
This would appear to be the case since, in an interview he granted in 2018 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B7EDr16dW/, he claimed he left work on Friday and resumed in Ibadan on Monday. Perhaps Mr Adekanmbi should update his CV on LinkedIn so we can see something more comprehensive, that speaks to the actual work he did in these companies.

And as for his tenure under the late Governor Ajimobi, if you strip away sentiment: Nothing he did as Commissioner clearly positions him as a natural successor to Makinde.
During his tenure: IGR remained low (Compared to 296% increase under Seyi Makinde), He did not do anything to contribute to transparency for example building a transparent digital treasury system. Salaries were owed for seven months, at one point and there was no signature economic reform.

1. So why is he in the conversation?
   The answer looks dangerous, no matter where you choose to look at it from.
   Ajayi lives in Bodija, Ibadan.