Ondo State governor-elect, Rotimi Akeredolu, has been issued with a certificate of return by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The brief ceremony took place at the headquarters of the commission in Akure, the Ondo State Capital.

Receiving the certificate from INEC Supervising National Commissioner, Solomon Soyebi, Akeredolu said his victory in the governorship election was not only for himself and his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, but for the people of the state.

He promised that his administration will carry everybody along regardless of whether they voted for him or not.

He said: “Today’s victory is of God through the good people of Ondo State. It is not for me or APC alone.

“It is a victory for the people of Ondo state, irrespective of which side of the divide you stood during the election. For me it is a call to service and a challenge to perform.

“Although we all had different points of view before the election but today, as members of one strong, vibrant and indivisible Ondo State family, we are all united and resolute with one single objective to save our beloved Ondo State.”

Akeredolu described his victory as a new dawn, adding that the time has come for the people of Ondo State “to rediscover and reinvent ourselves.”

“It is time to find what we lost, to rescue this land and its people from the myriad of poverty and pains which daily assail their lives.”

He called on fellow party members to put behind the rancor and controversy that followed the Party’s governorship primary election, which almost split the Ondo APC in two.

The governor-elect said little would be achieved unless the party was united and support the incoming administration in order to record appreciable progress, saying “we will take deliberate and decisive steps to optimally harness our overall potential for greatness, prosperity, peace and stability.”