President Bola Tinubu has waded into the political crisis in Ondo State caused by the ailment of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.
The president will be meeting with the state’s deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, members of the House of Assembly and other key stakeholders at the presidential villa, Abuja Friday afternoon, a presidential aide confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES.
Among the stakeholders who left Akure, the state capital, for the meeting in Abuja Friday morning were commissioners and leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
Some prominent people in the state and across the Southwest region had appealed to Mr Tinubu to intervene in the protracted crisis in the state that arose from the incapacitation of Mr Akeredolu by ill health.
A report by The Nation newspaper said the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Oladiji Olamide, also confirmed the meeting.
It also quoted Mr Oladiji confirming that some lawmakers had earlier planned a plenary of the House for Friday to declare Mr Aiyedatiwa, as acting governor.
He said: “Our sitting was to declare Aiyedatiwa as Acting Governor. The Governor is still alive.”
That session of the House was cancelled after the president waded into the crisis and invited the lawmakers to Abuja.
The lawmakers are believed to be divided over the issue with 11 of them said to be in support of declaring the governor as incapacitated and Mr Aiyedatiwa as acting governor.
However, loyalists of Mr Akeredolu in the APC and the state executive council were as of Friday morning demanding the resignation of Mr Aiyedatiwa, to pave the way for the Speaker of the House to become acting governor.
They said elevating Mr Aiyedatiwa to the position would amount to rewarding him for disloyalty to his principal.
But Mr Akeredolu’s supporters also acknowledged that they do not have the number in the state legislature to force the removal of the deputy governor from office.
A commissioner, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on Friday but asked not to be identified, said loyalists of the governor anticipated that the president may plead with them to bury the hatchets and work with Mr Aiyedatiwa as acting governor.
“If the president insists on Aiyedatiwa, then there should be a consensual arrangement that would not deliver him as the winner in this dispute,” the commissioner said.
If he again assumes power as acting governor – he had served in the same position for three months until September when Mr Akeredolu returned from medical leave in Germany – it would mark a stunning reversal of fortunes for Mr Aiyedatiwa.
Since the return of Mr Akeredolu to the country and his formal resumption of duty, his aides have been pushing for the sack of the deputy governor whom they accused of disloyalty to Mr Akeredolu.
The state House of Assembly had begun the process for his removal by asking the state’s chief judge to set up a panel to investigate allegations of gross misconduct raised against him by some lawmakers loyal to Mr Akeredolu.
But the deputy governor obtained an order of the Federal High Court that restrained the chief judge and the lawmakers from taking any further step in the process until the court had examined Mr Aiyedatiwa’s complaints
Mr Akeredolu has about a year left before the end of his tenure, having been reelected to a second term in October 2020.
PREMIUM TIMES
