According to reports, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, who is now ill, has been told by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to assign his authority to his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
Owing to the governor’s health, Naija News has learned that an electronic signature, or e-signature, would be used to expedite the transfer of power in place of paper documents.
The instruction was delivered yesterday at a meeting held by President Tinubu to discuss the Ondo leadership situation.
Attendees were reportedly told by the Nigerian leader that Governor Akeredolu could no longer sign official documents due to a decline in his health.
To find a resolution to the lingering tussle in the South-West state, President Tinubu had summoned the state deputy governor, Aiyedatiwa, and the House of Assembly Speaker, Olamide Oladiji, to an urgent meeting at Aso Villa in Abuja, scheduled for Monday.
According to SaharaReporters, sources in the know have revealed that President Tinubu intends to propose that the deputy governor assume the role of acting governor in order to address the leadership crisis in the state.
The emergency meeting on Monday marks the second gathering called by the President to address the leadership crisis, which arose due to the governor’s absence from office since July 2023.
Also, the meeting was coming due to mounting pressure from the civil society organisation Take-It-Back, which had threatened to commence mass protests across Ondo State from Saturday, December 16, to demand Akeredolu’s resignation.
Recall that the Ondo State governor had gone AWOL since returning to Nigeria in September from a three-month medical leave in Germany.
Apart from Aiyedatiwa and Oladiji, Akeredolu’s son, Babajide, who the governor appointed in November 2021 as the Director General of the Performance and Project Implementation Monitoring Unit, Office of the Governor of Ondo State (PPIMU), was one of those present at the meeting.
The senator representing Ondo South, Jimoh Ibrahim, was also present at the latest meeting.
According to SaharaReporters, insiders revealed that initially, there was a consensus among the attendees that the State House of Assembly should utilize the doctrine of necessity to appoint Aiyedatiwa as the interim governor.
However, a few present individuals implored President Tinubu not to proceed with this course of action as it would embarrass the ailing governor.
“During the meeting, it was agreed that the State House of Assembly should invoke the doctrine of necessity and make Lucky Ayedatiwa the Acting Governor, but the Speaker and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim pleaded that the ailing governor would be humiliated,” one of the sources reportedly said.
“The son (Babajide) then promised to go and obtain his father’s e-signature to pen a letter to the State House of Assembly, transferring power to the deputy governor,” it added.
During the meeting, insiders also revealed that an individual expressed worry about the transfer of power through questionable methods, considering the existing case of forgery in the management of state affairs.
