The political fortunes of Senator Solomon Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, may have suffered a fresh setback after a reportedly tense meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos over allegations of massive budget padding and other financial improprieties.
The Sunday night meeting, according to sources familiar with the development, allegedly turned confrontational after the President was briefed on petitions reportedly lodged against the Ogun governorship hopeful before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Sources said the petitions were brought to the President’s attention after the two anti-graft agencies were allegedly alerted to complaints concerning financial dealings linked to the Senator.
Tinubu was reportedly keen to establish the substance of the allegations and asked questions about the evidence contained in the petitions.
What he allegedly saw, however, reportedly triggered an angry reaction.
Sources claimed the documents contained allegations involving trillions of naira in alleged budget padding, prompting the President to summon Adeola for an explanation.
The Senator was reportedly confronted with some of the allegations during the meeting.
But according to insiders, his explanations allegedly failed to satisfy the President.
One allegation said to have particularly unsettled the President was that only about 30 per cent of projects allegedly inserted into the budget are eventually executed, while payments are allegedly made for projects that were never completed or, in some cases, never undertaken.
The sources further alleged that funds connected to some of the purportedly unexecuted projects were allegedly routed through companies described as fronts.
None of these allegations has been independently established. Neither the EFCC nor the ICPC had, as of the time of filing, publicly confirmed the specific petitions or allegations said to have been discussed.
But the political implications of the claims are already generating concern within the APC, particularly because Adeola is positioning himself for the 2027 Ogun governorship contest.
According to sources, Tinubu was reportedly less concerned only about the immediate allegations than about the potential political fallout if they gain traction ahead of the 2027 elections.
The fear, insiders said, is that the allegations could hand the opposition a potent campaign weapon and potentially drag the President’s administration into a controversy involving one of the politicians seeking to fly the APC flag in Ogun State.
It was against that backdrop, sources claimed, that Tinubu reportedly delivered a blunt warning to Adeola:
“You are becoming a dent on my administration.”
The alleged remark has since become one of the most striking details surrounding the meeting, although neither the Presidency nor Adeola has publicly confirmed that the statement was made.
A ‘Father-and-Son’ Meeting?
Interestingly, Adeola’s handlers have reportedly played down the political significance of the encounter, describing it as a routine “father-and-son” meeting.
The public explanation was that the Senator visited Tinubu to express appreciation over the President’s role in the signing of the $7 billion Olokola Deep Seaport project in Paris.
That account, however, has failed to extinguish speculation among political stakeholders that the meeting may have involved far more serious issues.
The reported confrontation comes at a politically sensitive moment for Adeola, whose governorship ambition has increasingly become a subject of intense political calculations within Ogun APC.
Should the allegations gain wider public traction, political observers say they could complicate his efforts to consolidate support within the party and raise fresh questions about the suitability of his candidacy.
For now, however, the most explosive elements of the story remain allegations contained in petitions and accounts attributed to unnamed sources.
The Presidency and Senator Adeola have yet to publicly confirm the reported confrontation, while the EFCC and ICPC have not publicly validated the specific allegations said to have been presented to the President.