The outcome of President Bola Tinubu’s mediation in the Ondo state leadership crisis last Friday has been made clear after the Ondo state Assembly asked Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa to submit an undated resignation letter as agreed.
Since Mr Aiyedatiwa would still be serving as the state’s deputy governor, the true purpose of this letter is still unclear and the subject of controversy.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Olamide Oladiji, claims that President Tinubu mediated a peace agreement that required both sides to maintain the status quo, drop all court cases and impeachment proceedings, and keep the party and House leadership intact.
Some close to the story had made predictions about Friday’s meeting with the president before Tuesday’s plenary. Some even predicted that the Assembly would name Mr Aiyedatiwa as its interim governor on Tuesday.
However, it has now been revealed by the Speaker that the controversial part of the deal was that Aiyedatiwa had to write and submit an undated resignation letter to the President, while still performing his duties as the deputy governor.
“We, as elected representatives of the people, have only acted within the precinct of the mandate freely given to us by our constituents,” Mr Oladiji said, reading out the resolutions made on Friday.
The Speaker continued by saying that the President had given him, Mrs Oladunni Odu, the Secretary of the Ondo State Government, and Ade Adetimehin, the state chairman of the All Progressives Congress, the task of making sure the resolutions were followed.
An acquaintance of Mr Aiyedatiwa told Punch Newspapers that the State Assembly had broken their agreement with the President, following the reading in the plenary.
According to the source, Mr Aiyedatiwa was displeased with the conclusions at the Assembly Complex on Tuesday because the expectation was for the Assembly to declare him the acting governor.
“I don’t know what will happen next on the matter because the House has not kept its part of the deal,” he said.
“The status quo they are talking about is for the deputy governor to be acting as the governor and that is what I expected the speaker to read today and he didn’t put that in his speech.”
