The Ondo State government has dismissed a statement attributed to the national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu which suggested that Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was seriously ill and hospitalized abroad.
The government criticized the report as “wicked, mischievous and insensitive”.
Adamu was allegedly quoted making the statement at a meeting between the party’s national leadership and APC state chairmen in Abuja on Monday.
The state’s commissioner for information and orientation, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju responded swiftly to the claims.
In a statement issued in Akure, the state capital, Ademola-Olateju suggested that Adamu was quoted out of context.
The commissioner clarified in the statement that “At no time did the Chairman mention that the Governor was in a state of ‘extreme incapacity’.”
The statement reads, “The attention of Ondo State government has been drawn to a report, credited to the Chairman of the APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, in the 11th July, 2023.
”The headline, “Akeredolu in state of extreme incapacity, hospitalised”, bore a tinge of the usual mischievous, wicked and insensitive reportage, sponsored by desperate politicians.
“The Chairman of the APC in Ondo State, Engineer Ade Adetimehin, who attended the meeting, has debunked the report as untrue and totally disconnected from the statement of the Chairman at the event.
“The National Chairman was indeed excited at the reports on the rate of recovery of the Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, CON, and urged all those present at the meeting to pray for his quick return.
“It, therefore, smacks of mischief and unabashed abandonment of professional ethics for a reporter to present this gross misrepresentation, a mischievous twist, as news.
“At no time did the Chairman mention that the Governor was in a state of “extreme incapacity”.
“He is, evidently, not in any critical state that should warrant this clearly reprehensible conduct as he still sent a post to the Executive Council Committee platform yesterday.
“Members of the public are advised to ignore this news as the contents therein exist in the realm of the imagination of workers of iniquity.”
The commissioner declared that “Mr Governor is NOT incapacitated. He will return to his duty as soon as the doctors certify him fully fit to do so.”
Recall that the governor, on Monday wrote to the state assembly, requesting for an extension of his medical leave.
