The Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has formally declared his intention to contest the governorship election come November this year.
The governor dropped the long awaited news, hours after his predecessor, the late Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, was buried on Friday.
Mr Aiyedatiwa said he would wish to contest and win the forthcoming election as required by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for one more term.
He, however, would first have to win the Governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which is slated for April this year.
The governor spoke on TVC News on Friday.
“Definitely, I will be running because I am already a sitting governor. And let me say this that nobody wants to be governor for one year,” Mr Aiyedatiwa said in response to a question whether he would run in the election.
“Give me what the constitution allows me to do, at least, let me have a chance of also running for one more term as it were,” he said.
The governor also denied that he had any conflict with the late Governor Akeredolu before his death.
He noted that it was a few individuals in the state, driven by their ambition, who caused the crisis in the state.
”Let me put this straight for the record sake, I never had issues with my former principal, there was no time we had a face off, there was no time we had an issue that will demand that I have to make up with him.
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”All that were being pushed out at a time were basically political; they were all falsehood and insinuations because election was coming and they knew the governor was so sick and a lot of things were at play,” the governor said.
On the open letter written by five members of the House of Representatives from Ondo state to the President, Mr Aiyedatiwa said the members had a right to air their views.
“Everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion. That is just an opinion of some people that are so driven by ambition. If you look at the profile of those five members of the House of Representatives, they have individual aspirants they are supporting in the upcoming election.
”So, all of them have their own ambition who they want to be governor. That is an unprogressive position and the party has actually responded that there was no crisis in the party, that they are not at loggerheads with me,” he said.
Mr Aiyedatiwa had kept his ambition close to his chest until Friday when Governor Akeredolu’s burial rites were concluded.
The APC national secretariat had ruled out the possibility of an automatic ticket for him.
PREMIUM TIMES, however, gathered that there are forces within his party averse to his ambition and that he would need to work hard to be able to win the party’s ticket.
That are also fears that the President Bola Tinubu factor might be a major decider, and this has informed a number of aspirants travelling regularly to Abuja to curry the favour of the presidency as the primaries approach.
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