I warned Akeredolu about people surrounding him — ex-running mate

“When Akeredolu was alive, I used to advise and tell him about how life is and also warned him about the people around him,” Paul Akintelure, a governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress in the November 16 election in Ondo, disclosed.

Mr Akintelure stated this in an interview on Tuesday in Akure.

Mr Akintelure was the running mate to Rotimi Akeredolu in the 2012 governorship election in Ondo on the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria platform.

“There’s nothing that is threatening my chance in this process of forming leadership in Ondo state,” Mr Akintelure stated.

The Igbotako-born politician, in the Okitipupa local government area of the state, urged the electorate to be wary of people with “inordinate ambition and do-or-die politicians.”

He added, “We must be able to know what you are doing, and you must have a second address in any political thinking or anything you want to do about ruling the people.

“If you don’t have a second address, that is when this idea of do-or-die politics problem comes in.”

Mr Akintelure said he had warned Mr Akeredolu about the people that surrounded him while in government.

Mr Akintelure advised politicians in the state to stop using Mr Akeredolu’s name to “score cheap political points and allow him to rest.”

Mr Akintelure, who also spoke on the protracted crisis rocking Ondo, urged the federal government to ensure that the remaining year of the current administration results in economic growth.

“I want to admonish the federal government to ensure that the remaining one year of this administration is done in a way that peace returns to Ondo state and any attempt to allow the gladiator to continue in government, I think the crisis will continue.

“So that the people would not suffer due to political tension caused by gladiators. We must be very, very careful about leadership recruitment in Ondo state.

“I think we are wasting too much time on the crisis. The gladiators should allow peace to reign in the state. They should allow fresh blood, fresh ideas to come; people who are neutral,” Mr Akintelure explained.

He added, “People who don’t have anything to do with the crisis that is going on in the state should be allowed to rule Ondo state so that normalcy will return to the state.”

Mr Akintelure said he had suspended his campaign until after the burial of Akeredolu as a mark of respect for the deceased governor.

(NAN)