By Jubril Bada

Ondo State Givernor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa has declared that he will contest the November 16, 2024 governorship election in the state.

Aiyedatiwa who succeeded his late principal, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu who died December last year and buried on Friday in Owo said he would like to contest and win the forthcoming election as required by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The governor denied having crisis with the late  Akeredolu before he died, adding that it was few individuals in the state who were being driven by their ambition caused the crisis in the state last year.

Speaking on a television programme , Aiyedatiwa said, ”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. Give me what the constitution allows me to do, at least let me have a chance also running for one more term as it were.”

”Let me put this straight for the record sake, I never had issues with 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.

”All that were 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.

“There was no time, I had an issue that I needed to resolve with him , in terms of crisis. All that you saw at a time , were basically political. It was driven by the ambition of few people who knew there is going to be transition in the state and I was advantaged as the deputy.”

On the open letter written by five members of the House of Representatives from Ondo state to the president, Aiyedatiwa said, ”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 their individual aspirants they are supporting towards the election.

“One of them is actually an aspirant, what do you expect from an aspirant? He wants to say something to demarket somebody who is having a great advantage; one other one is a director general of campaign to an aspirant.

”So, all of them have their own ambitions 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.“