Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, is dead.

The governor, aged 67, died on Wednesday morning after a prolonged health battle.

Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), ex-president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and ex-Attorney General of Ondo State, was a second-term governor before his death.

The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, announced the governor’s death in a statement.

“Mr. Governor peacefully departed from this world in the early hours of today, Wednesday, December 27, 2023,” she wrote.

This tragedy has left behind a profound void in our hearts. Governor Akeredolu answered the eternal call while receiving medical treatment in Germany. He succumbed to complications arising from protracted prostate cancer.”

Ademola-Olateju said a letter has been sent to President Bola Tinubu to inform him of Akeredolu’s passing, adding that the family and the state government will release further details regarding the funeral arrangements.

Aketi, as he was fondly called by friends and admirers, wore many hats and was acknowledged by many of his contemporaries as a dogged leader with unbending personal convictions. Until his death, he was the Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum, a body with governors of the 17 states in Southern Nigeria as members. Akeredolu also led his other five colleagues in the South-West as chairman, championing many reforms, especially in the area of security, prominent among which was the establishment of the South-West Security Network codenamed Amotekun.

Aketi was unpretentious, unpatronising and vocal against injustice, oppression and subjugation of all kinds. He was a voice against herdsmen attacks on farmers, and one of the unswerving critics of the administration of then President Muhammadu Buhari, despite that they belonged to the same ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Fearless, Aketi stood for his deepest convictions and didn’t mind walking alone, far away from the bandwagon. He went for the jugular of the Federal Government, always siding with the people and holding the Federal Government to account for its core responsibility of protecting the people, especially during an attack on a Catholic church in Owo, his last.