Aiyedatiwa presides over Ondo SEC meeting today

• Group faults speaker on political crisis
With months into the political crisis in Ondo State, the deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, yesterday, resurfaced in Akure.

He reportedly resumed work in his office a few days after the peace meeting with President Bola Tinubu.

According to the governor’s itinerary, Aiyedatiwa will, today, preside over the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting.

A statement by Chief of Protocol, Bola Alabi, said the press would effectively participate in the parley.

A top official, who craved anonymity, confirmed: “The exco meeting on Thursday shows that everyone is sticking with the resolution reached with President Bola Tinubu.

All that we are focused on is the development of Ondo State, and that should be paramount in the minds of all of us at the moment.”

Meanwhile, a group, Concerned Elites, has faulted Speaker of Ondo House of Assembly, Olamide Oladiji, for allegedly distorting resolutions reached with President Bola Tinubu on the impasse.

Describing the act as a “rape of democratic governance,” the organisation accused the House of violating the nation’s Constitution.

At plenary yesterday in Akure after last weekend’s meeting at the State House, Abuja, Oladiji reportedly said as part of the resolutions, the deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, was asked to write an undated resignation letter to be addressed to the President.

In a statement signed by its chairman and secretary, Olanrewaju Akeredolu and Adeola Fagbayibo, the group insisted that the speaker’s action was a direct opposite of what transpired at the meeting.

The statement reads in parts: “It is unclear to the people of the state whom they claim to be representing how the lawmakers will abandon their core duty of bringing an acting governor on board now that it is clear that the governor is incapacitated.”

“The coded media intelligence team earlier found out that the state assembly is inviting some people for interviews as a caretaker committee for local governments across the state. Is Mr Speaker not aware of the illegality of this move? Are they assuming that we did not know that Akeredolu didn’t sign any of such documents before departing Nigeria for Germany in April on health grounds? Why this connivance?

“Everyone expects the lawmakers to, as soon as they are back from Abuja, work on the doctrine of necessity as provided in the Constitution without any encumbrance.

“As the news of President Tinubu’s intervention in the logjam broke, the people rejoiced with the hope that those at the corridor of power within the state would bury their hatchet in the interest of the citizens, but these demonstrations were contrary.”