The Acting Governor of Ondo State, Hon. Lucky Aiyedatiwa has been sworn in as the governor of the state.
The swearing-in was held at the Cocoa Conference Hall in the governor’s office in Akure, the state capital and was administered by the chief judge, Justice Olusegun Odusola at 5:18 pm.
Present to witness the swearing-in are other judges and top government officials, including the secretary to the state government and members of the state cabinet, the state All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman and members of the state house of assembly.
His inauguration followed the death of Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu earlier on Wednesday. Akeredolu was governor from 24th February 2017, and was re-elected for a second term which was to have ended on 24th February 2015.
Aiyedatiwa’s walk to becoming the governor was a long one that lasted one year since Akeredolu suffered health challenges before he eventually succumbed to the claws of death on Wednesday in faraway Germany where he was being treated for prostate cancer.
Aiyedatiwa survived an impeachment plot by Akeredolu’s allies in the Ondo State House of Assembly and stark opposition by his late principal’s foot soldiers.
Controversy enveloped the politics of the state in the last few months with activists and constitutional lawyers calling on Akeredolu to transmit power to Aiyedatiwa in line with the 1999 Constitution.
Akeredolu was in and out of hospitals abroad before he breathed his last on Wednesday.
Eventually, Akeredolu, a second-term governor before his death, transmitted power to Aiyedatiwa on 13th December 2023, as he embarked on a fresh medical trip overseas, the second in 2023.
Akeredolu, 67, could not make it back to Nigeria as he died of complications arising from prostate cancer.
