Aketi @70: The Lion of Ondo Still Roars In Our Hearts- Olabode Omoyele
An All Progressives Congress,APC Chieftain,Mr.Olabode Omoyele has described the immediate past Governor of Ondo State,Late Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu,SAN as ‘the Lion of Ondo who still roars on in the heart and memory of the good people of The Sunshine State’. Olabode in an official statement to serenda the Late Governor on his 70th posthumous noted that the Pride of Owo, Pride of the legal profession in Nigeria and the pride of the good people of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu lives on as long as his legacies continue to speak volume across Ondo State and beyond.
“Today, 21 July 2026, my our leader and former Chief Executive of Ondo State,Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, CON, SAN, would have been 70. It is a posthumous birthday, yes, but in Ondo and across Nigeria, it does not feel like mourning. It feels like remembrance with pride. Aketi was not a man you forgot. From Owo to Akure, from the Bar to Government House, he carried himself with the courage of conviction and the clarity of a lawyer who knew that justice without action is mere theory.
” Even in death, his voice still sets the tone for how we speak truth to power in the Southwest,” Olabode noted.
Going further, Olabode added, “I knew Aketi as a fighter who loved his people first. As Attorney General, as NBA President, and later as Governor of Ondo State from 2017 to 2023, he never separated law from service. He built institutions, but more importantly, he built confidence. When he spoke about security, about Amotekun, about federalism, about the dignity of Yoruba land, he spoke with the authority of someone who had read the law, lived the politics, and felt the pain of the common man. He was blunt, sometimes controversial, but never dishonest. That was the Aketi way: say it as it is, then stand by it.”
Olabode maintained that Seventy is an age of elder statesmanship. “It is the age where a man should be telling younger ones stories by the fireside in Owo, racking jokes, and still drafting memos at midnight. Death denied us that chapter on 27 December 2023. Yet what he left behind has not aged a day. The roads, the schools, the bold stance on regional cooperation, the way he made “Arakunrin” more than a title — it all remains. For us in Ondo, his birthday is now a civic reminder: that leadership must be principled, and that silence in the face of injustice is a betrayal.
“So today, on what would have been your 70th, Baba Aketi, we do not ask “why so soon.” We say thank you. Thank you for teaching us that a lawyer can be a governor, and a governor can still be a lawyer for the people. Ondo will keep your light burning. Nigeria will keep quoting you. And those of us who made you our model will keep telling your story until the next generation knows the name: Rotimi Akeredolu. The Lion of Ondo. Ile baba wa, sun re o,” Olabode said.
