A quiet unease is building around the Ondo State Government House, centred on the working relationship between Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa and his deputy, Dr Olayide Adelami. None of the claims driving the speculation has been independently confirmed.
The most concrete allegation involves money. Sources close to the matter claim more than N180 million in running costs, travel allowances, and other entitlements owed to the Deputy Governor’s office have gone unpaid for months, straining its ability to function.
Questions have also touched the Commissioner for Finance, Mrs Omomumi Isaac, with claims that her office played a role in withholding the payments. Neither she nor the state government has offered a public account of what actually happened.
A second category of concern is political rather than financial. Some stakeholders allege Adelami has been sidelined from appointments and grassroots decisions typically reserved for a sitting deputy governor, including reported difficulty influencing a councillor selection in his own ward.
If accurate, that would suggest a deliberate narrowing of the deputy’s role rather than routine friction. Which is odd because Aiyedatiwa served as deputy under the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu during a period marked by open institutional tension.
