Architect Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour is a brilliant, passionate young man who cares deeply for his people. Many say he was robbed of the Gubernatorial seat of Lagos in 2023 when he ran under the Labour Party. In this interview with Assistant Political Editor, Chinwe Odita, GRV, as he is called for short, went down memory lane and revealed his hopes, plans for his people in 2027. Excerpts:
Who is Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour? In 2023, you were denigrated as a non-indigene of Lagos. They nicknamed you “Chinedu” and said you were Igbo. What has changed? Many called you a too- polished child, out of
touch with the Yoruba roots and culture?
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour is an Architect by profession and a politician by passion.
In 2023, I was the Labour party candidate for governorship election, in 2019, I was Senatorial candidate for Lagos West. I am a passionate Lagosian.
Again I tell people that all these campaign that APC did, creating rumours and lies, it’s just a distraction, so we don’t focus on the fact that they are stealing Lagos blind and Lagosians deserve so much more.
I said recently in a public fora that as far back as 1910, that Roche was pumping water from Iju to Lagos. Today people of Lagos have no access to clean portable water.
They’re desperate for water. These are issues. We are surrounded by water but there’s hardly any water supply to any houses.
I grew up in a Lagos when after playing football, we go to a tap, wash our legs and faces and drink water from the tap without getting sick.
I grew up in Lagos where there were no boreholes, no pure water packs and this is as far back as the 80s and the late 90s.
So even as a young man, I can point to, tell my children that there was a time when government provided services much better than what we are currently experiencing.
Now as per denigrating me in 2023, in the time of Funsho Williams to Jimi Agbaje, they were calling him Jimmy Chukwu, and said he was the leader of the East. Anybody that stands up against the Tinubu hegemony, immediately, they’ll try to divide and rule. It’s a strategy and they’ve done it, not just for me but for Jimmy Agbaje who is a blue blood of Lagos.
His family has not only contributed to Lagos but to Nigeria in the financial sector without controversy and a very interesting irony is that the people that push these lies are the supporters of a man who we don’t know who his father is, his family name is in question, his origin is in question, is he from Iragbiji, is he from Lagos, is he even a Tinubu? Is he male , is he female, where are his classmates? We are not sure, we don’t know, where are his degrees, what certification did he get?
He’s employing lawyers to prevent people from seeing his certificates. This is the same human being that people that peddle this rubbish are supporting.
So what we are seeing here is a strategy of projection. The weaknesses they have, they try to project it to others.
Meanwhile I come from a family without any such controversy. Our history is well documented in books by historians for the impact that we’ve had on Africa, West Africa, Lagos and indeed Nigeria. My family produced the second ever judge in Nigeria.
My family produced the second ever judge that went directly from the bar to the Supreme Court.
Since then, we’ve produced three judges back to back in generations.
I know where my great grandfather is buried. I can point to his name, his tomb. My family gave Lagos the land that they built city hall on.
These are unquestionable facts, so when people support a person that has so much controversy around his name, call a son of the soil” , an Omo Eko Pataki” , a person that is not of Lagos, then you just know that they’re being mischievous and they’re just trying to be a distraction.
So I don’t pay them much mind because I know what it is. It’s a strategy to make sure Lagosians don’t pay attention to their looting and graft.
Why should Lagos voters trust you again, especially the Igbos, considering that a lot of them suffered physical assaults, injuries and even death at the hands of thugs of the ruling party? What are your plans to ensure the safety of electorates who want to come out and vote for their candidate of choice in 2027?
After the 2023 elections, I spent some time visiting everybody that was reported hurt. I paid hospital bills and took care of a lot of people. I showed empathy and I’ve been consistent with it.
So when you’re talking about trust, for me, it’s also about highlighting the fact that people that want to lead, should protect lives and property, which is their foremost responsibility.
The people are supposed to come in to government and make lives easier for the people they govern.
Actually instead of planning how to, they would campaign, plan violence against people, they deliberately extended the election and prepared violence.
So since then, we’ve worked with communities, we’ve built our own structures, we’re encouraging the people to understand that an election is more than just voting. We need to follow our results from polling units to the ward, local governments. These are people who have seen the effects of bad governance, they’re people who are spending so much money on diesel, electricity, spend so much money on food.
There is nobody that can point out and say their lives are tremendously better from 2015 to now. Think about the rent people are paying, how much it’ll cost us to fill out tanks, how much it costs to rent property and how much the average Nigerian wage has not increased.
Think about the minimum wage. How many bags of rice can that buy?
So everybody knows there are consequences to bad governance, consequences to election, consequences to a governor or president or party whose sole focus is listening to what World Bank says as opposed to listening to its people on ground and creating an environment and policies that puts the people at the heart of it. An economy that puts the people first.
We are going to campaign and let people know their lives matter. There are so many people that are dying because of bad governance, from healthcare where there is lack of oxygen in hospitals, to doctors not being paid, well, to security.
All of these are symptoms of bad governance.
Are you still with the Labour party and will you run as their Guber candidate again or have you moved to another party as the rumour mill indicates?It was brought to national attention, the fact that I had joined ADC all the way back in September/ October last year, mainly because of the violence that APC in partnership with the police brought on my events.
All the news media outlets, Prime Time TV covered it, most newspapers as well so I think most Nigerians are aware that I am running by God’s grace, I’ll emerge the candidate of ADC in Lagos. I ‘ve since left the labour party since last year.
There are some who say that since 1999, only one true Lagosian has been able to get to the Alausa seat of power – Fashola. They say all the others are outsiders and that Lagosians are allowing outsiders to come and steal their wealth. How true is this and if true, as a true Lagosian, what are your plans to put an end to this?
I will not speak on who is a Lagosian or who is not. I think issues that truly matter affects us all. At the same time, there’s something to be said for a child, a person , a human being that carries the story of his people or her people, the person knows the values, what it matters to be Lagosian and the secret behind creating a city that is so welcoming, a place that every Nigerian wants to have a base in. There’s something to be said for people that’ll spend their resources in Lagos because they don’t have anywhere else to go.
We have a situation where somebody represented Lagos West, prior to that, he had represented Alimosho in the state Assembly, Lagos West in the Senate and has gone to represent Ogun west in the Senate, and now, he is running for governor of Ogun State.
A lot of resources that were accumulated, that was meant for the Constituencies in Lagos, that he represented, were used for his political ambition in another state.
There is something to be said for the Commonwealth of Lagos being spent in Lagos and Lagos being run and having people at the helm that carry the story and carry the history, understanding of what it means to be Omo- Eko, what it means to be a Lagosian and being in charge of those affairs.
But as to who is a Lagosian and who is not, we have our fathers that will speak to this and have been speaking to this. My focus is on ensuring that we have governance that makes the lives of every Lagosian better.
And a government that works in partnership with the people, not the one, that works almost as a stumbling block you know, one that just brings challenges to people, that they’ll have to get over, as opposed to having a partner in progress.
Do you think there’ll be a free and fair election in the country and indeed in Lagos going by the 2023 election experience?
About free and fair election, the current government knows that they’re not deserving of returning, so I don’t think they have any plans of conducting any free and fair elections in 2027.
What we have to do is prepare for whatever they have to bring and ensure that we emerge triumphant.
So that’s where our strategy comes in, our messages comes in to the people, to understand that this is not something you leave just for the politicians.
Politicians will work in the interest of the people and be accountable to people that put them in power. This is a fight that is going to be between Nigerians and the ruling party.
What are your thoughts on the INEC and Senate interpretation of the electoral reforms on transmission of electoral results?
I feel that the Senate and the House of Representatives have literarily worked in tandem with the APC. I don’t think they’ve put in place a system to allow for a credible election.
You look at what South Africa achieved, and Ghana. The fact that we’re still talking about election transmission of votes in 2026 in this day and age when most of the lives of these senators are run digitally.
They access their money through digital portals, have calls, messages through digital means, yet they make it seem as if that is something that cannot be done- to entrench a credible election system in Nigeria .
And this bothers on National Security issues because elections are done so that people can get out their frustrations and give their referendum on whether they’ve gotten good governance and whether the mandate they gave to a party is justified.
So that frustration is channeled every four years. When you take that away from people, you start to give the impression that they need to take matters into their own hands, which starts to create a lot of problems for everybody.
Lagos is a mixture of all ethnic peoples of Nigeria but tribal hatred and sentiments run deep. If you do get to the Alausa seat, what are your plans to unite Lagosians?
The idea of Lagos ethnic hatred is just done by politicians who have nothing to offer.
When you don’t have a vision, you sell division and you employ divide and rule because you know you don’t have anything to offer.
If you have a vision, you tell the people about it and unite people around it. So the extent of vision they have is the extent of their account and that is all they’re interested in.
With all this hatred they try to make us believe exists, every Saturday, you hear of Emeka is marrying Adeola or Seyi marrying Nneka. This happens every Saturday in Lagos, so the fact of the matter is that all these hatred is being pushed by a political establishment that does not have a vision to sell.
Because the vision is also supposed to be one that unites people.
Many people believe you won the Lagos gubernatorial election in 2023 but it was stolen through brigandage, lies, thuggery etc by the current ruling party. What are your plans to stop the same thing from happening again in 2027?
Our plans are communal resistance. We’re putting together a resistance force, this will be in our messaging like I earlier said, it’s the people versus the ruling party. It’s not something that you leave for just politicians because all of us are affected by insecurity, high cost of food, fuel, diesel, and electricity.
Even those that claim to be on Band A are not getting light. All of us are affected by bad governance and we all have a part to play.
What do you have to say concerning insecurity crisis in the country? The insecurity is gradually seeping into the west and Lagosians don’t feel as safe as they used to feel. What are your plans on securing Lagos?
And Security crisis is terrible, it’s like cancer, the more people leave it, the more it metastasizes, spreads. It will eventually touch everybody especially when you think of the fact of a president coming into a place, one, he cannot go into where this violence happened, We saw this in Benue, we also saw that he came and said he could only spend ten minutes, so you see the lackadaisical approach to protecting lives and property which is his primary responsibility.
For us, we have to enthrone THE VALUE of the NIGERIAN LiFE.
Look at when the American soldier was lost in Iran, Look at how many aircrafts and personnel were sent to rescue him. That’s what the value of an American life is.
The government needs to have a policy that endears the value of the Nigerian life to the people and to the government.
What would you like the Lagos electorate to bear in mind while choosing their next governor in 2027?
What I would like them to bear in mind is that when we have politicians that believe that they don’t need to be accountable to people, they then steal without fear.
We have people that are budgeting N140m for a generator that costs N60m and they want to buy 40 of those.
We have people that are spending billions on cars for themselves every year. Why? Because they don’t feel there’ll be any consequences.
So for the people of Lagos, we need a new government that will come in and be held accountable.
A government that will make sure that the resources of Lagos are being spent on our education, healthcare, our inner roads. Lagos is more than just Lekki to Ikeja.
When you go to Alimosho, look at the inner roads people are living in. Go to Ojo And look at the inner roads.
So these are things that must and needs to be corrected. And the people of Lagos will benefit from having an accountable, transparent financial system where you can say that you got the best deal for this bridge, not that you’ll look it and you see that the bridge cost times five of what you could have gotten it for.
So that’s what I appeal to Lagosians, you must look at issues that truly matter to us and our children. Those are the issues.
Elections are not Premier league that you can support a team and after you go home and carry on with your life.
Elections have consequences on you and your loved ones.
For a better society
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