Gov. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has picked Mr. Lucky Ayedatiwa as his running mate ahead of the Oct. 10 governorship election .
Akeredolu submitted the name of Ayedatiwa on Tuesday in a bid to beat Wednesday, July 29 deadline for submission of the running mate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ayedatiwa was a native of Obe-Nla, an oil-bearing community in Ilaje Local Government Area of the state, also a former representative of the state on the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
He was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for House of Representatives in Ilaje-Ese-Odo in 2015.
Ayedatiwa is presently the Managing Director of Bluewall Group of Companies established in 1999.
Newspread247 recalls that the choice of a running mate for Akeredolu had become contentious since the governor and his former deputy, Agboola Ajayi, became estranged and it became clear Ajayi who had since defected into the PDP would not run on the same ticket with Akeredolu.
Not a few prominent chieftains of the APC had lobbied leaders of the party including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to influence their nomination.
Some leaders of the party like Senator Borrofice Ajayi had insisted on picking the running mate as a way of backing Akeredolu’s re-election.