The intervention of President Bola Tinubu in the political crisis that has been rocking Ondo State over the feud between Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, may have suffered setbacks with speculation that the state House of Assembly is planning to declare Aiyedatiwa as the acting governor.
It was gathered that the Assembly may convene on Tuesday to deliberate on the proposal to declare Aiyedatiwa as acting governor.
With Akeredolu out of the state for the past six months over ill health, those in the camp of the governor were said to be strategising to prevent the plot against their boss.
DAILY POST recalls that the presidency, through a press release by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Tinubu, Ajuri Ngelale, advised all warring camps to bury the hatchet and embrace peace, eliciting commitments to this effect.
Ngelale’s statement read in parts: “This means that Governor Akeredolu remains Chief Executive of the State, Aiyedatiwa remains Deputy Governor, and members of the State Executive Council continue their respective duties, even as the leadership of the State’s House of Assembly and the APC Chapter in Ondo State is preserved.”
However, Aiyedatiwa was said to have met with some members of the Ondo State House of Assembly who were in his camp on Sunday night and insisted that he be declared acting governor on Tuesday.
One of the members of the House of Assembly who received the call from Aiyedatiwa but pleaded anonymity disclosed that the deputy governor queried the president’s intervention in the matter.
The lawmaker who craved anonymity said: “Last night (Sunday), a number of us received a call from the deputy governor. He informed us that he must be declared acting governor on Tuesday.
“When we reminded him that it wasn’t part of the resolutions reached at the meeting with the President, he said the President can’t tell us how to run Ondo State.”
When contacted over the development, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Olamide Oladiji, insisted that the lawmakers are in line with the outcome of the meeting with President Tinubu.
According to Oladiji, any decision not in tandem with the resolution reached with President Tinubu should be disregarded.