Oda following Fujimoto's Chainsaw man story telling style. Full random, zero coherence.
Just that, with the final "saga" he cant afford to let shit sit for 100 chapters until an arc ends. He basically needs to accelerate everyone elses plotlines to match Luffy and crews to get them where they need to be properly.
So if something "is" happening with Akainu soon, it makes sense to start featuring him more too like Blackbeard, Shanks, Kuzan, RAs, etc.