By Quadri Adefisoye
The former Commissioner for Finance in Ondo state, Wale Akinterinwa, claimed a couple of days ago that the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu anointed him to be his successor before the death of the legal luminary last year December. Akinterinwa made the claim recently while addressing his supporters in Akure, the state capital.
The unverifiable claim of the sacked commissioner has ignited a public conversation among political stakeholders in the state in relation to its authenticity or otherwise.
Some viewed Akinterinwa’s claim as merely playing politics with the personality of the dead because there is no way it can be verified. They concluded that the former commissioner was out to deceitfully profit from the death of his former boss. Others who doubt his claim said that the information in the public domain as regards the preference of the successor of Aketi is different from his claim.
One of the commissioners and cabinet members that were sacked last week by Governor Lucky Atedatiwa said the late Akeredolu did not anoint anybody. He added that contrary to Akinterinwa’s claim, the late governor, in one of the State Executive meetings, warned the former Commissioner for Finance and others to stop dropping his name to enhance their governorship ambitions. His words: “The governor did not anoint anybody before his death. The governor always said that anybody who wants to be governor should go and sell himself or herself to members of the party, and that his desire was that the most popular aspirant emerge as the candidate of the APC.”
Another member of the dissolved cabinet described Akinterinwa’s claim as fraudulent and an attempt to resuscitate his comatose gubernatorial ambition. In his words: “Wale is just trying to wake up his sleeping ambition. Aketi could not have anointed him. ” Also, a former commissioner and one of the APC leaders in Ondo state also traced the antecedents of Akinterinwa and concluded that his Akeredolu-anointing claim was forged.
He said: “For a man who led a cabal that tormented the state and almost brought it to its kneel during the protracted ailment of the departed governor; for a man who sponsored and financed a fraudulent impeachment process that was stopped by the incorruptible Chief Judge of Ondo state; for a commissioner of finance who has not been able to explain to the people of Ondo state whether payment was effected on the approvals that were procured with alleged forged signatures of former Governor Akeredolu, his antecedents above are sufficient enough to unearth the spurious intention behind his self-professed claim.
“I understand that Wale has an ambition to become the governor of Ondo state. I also understand his dilemma, arising from the warning the former governor handed down to Wale in particular that he, Aketi, did not and wilĺ not anoint anybody in his cabinet to succeed him against the popular wish of the party”.
“Before the death of Akeredolu, Akinterinwa’s only campaign strategy was to go around dropping the name of the then sick governor, as his successor. Now that the governor is late, Akinterinwa’s antic is to sustain his name-dropping strategy, as shown clearly by his recent claim that our departed governor anointed him on his sickbed. Akinterinwa’s claim is a mere face-saving strategy. Aketi never anointed him.”
Commenting on why Akinterinwa would have chosen this ignoble path, he avers that “after all, Wale knows there is no way to ask the dead if his claim is true or not.”
