The death of Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has thrown the state and the entire country into mourning. The governor, aged 67, died on Wednesday in a German hospital after several months of battle with leukaemia and prostate cancer. His death came at a time when hope rose for an improved medical situation.
Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), ex-president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and ex-Attorney General of Ondo State, was a second-term governor before his death.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, announced the governor’s death in a statement. She said: “Mr. Governor peacefully departed from this world in the early hours of today, Wednesday, December 27, 2023.
“This tragedy has left behind a profound void in our hearts. Governor Akeredolu answered the eternal call while receiving medical treatment in Germany. He succumbed to complications arising from protracted prostate cancer.”
Akeredolu was born on 21st July 1957, in Owo to J. Ola Akeredolu of the Akeredolu family in Owo and Grace Akeredolu of Aderoyiju family of Igbotu, Ese Odo, Ondo State. He attended Aquinas College, Akure, Loyola College, Ibadan, Oyo State, and Comprehensive High School, Ayetoro, in Ondo for his secondary and Higher School Education.
He also attended the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he studied law and graduated in 1977. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1978 and became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) 10 years later. He was elected the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in 2008.
His leadership of the NBA was marked by vibrancy and activism. He was not only forthright, he was also sensitive to human rights abuses.
Akeredolu’s foray into active politics began when he was appointed Attorney General of Ondo State between 1997 and 1999 before he became Chairman of the Legal Aid Council where he served between 2005 and 2006.
He contested the governorship election in Ondo State in 2012 on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). That election returned Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party, for a second term in office. He was offered the ticket to run for governor in the 2016 governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He won and became the governor of the state. He was fortunate to be returned for a second term in 2020, the tenure he could not complete due to his demise.
Akeredolu was one governor who did not mince his words in faulting the current political and economic structure of the Nigerian Federation. His call for restructuring was seen as daring, which was not popular with most leaders within the APC.
As a politician, Akeredolu wore many hats and was acknowledged by many of his contemporaries as a dogged leader with unbending personal convictions. Until his death, he was the Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum, a body with governors of the 17 states in Southern Nigeria as members.
He also led his other five colleagues in the South-West as chairman, championing many reforms, especially in the area of security, prominent among which was the establishment of the South-West Security Network codenamed Amotekun. He was an advocate of state police and restructuring, two convictions he trumpeted till he breathed his last.
He was unpretentious, unpatronising and vocal against injustice, oppression and subjugation of all kinds. He was a voice against herdsmen attacks on farmers, and one of the unswerving critics of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Akeredolu stood for his deepest convictions and didn’t mind walking alone, far away from the bandwagon. He went for the jugular of the Federal Government, always siding with the people and holding the Federal Government to account for its core responsibility of protecting the people, especially during an attack on a Catholic church in Owo, his hometown.
