Lagos 2023: Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour speaks on crisis in Labour Party

The 39-year-old emerged as the gubernatorial candidate of the party in August at a substitution primary election in Lagos.

What Rhodes-Vivour said: He spoke as a guest on the Arise TV Morning Show on Monday, September 05, 2022, He said that INEC officials were present at the substitution primary and “INEC officials will not come to witness a substitution primary If the person that is there has not been withdrawn.

“There are processes that the party went through to create that substitution primary which is followed and INEC approved of it. And my name, as you said, has been submitted to INEC as a candidate of the party.”

He added that his candidacy was given more credibility when the party’s national leaders came to Lagos to give him a certificate of return.

The Lagos LP crisis: The purported placeholder, Ifagbemi Awamaridi, has refused to withdraw his candidature despite the national leaders publicly supporting the substitution candidate.

In an affidavit of non-withdrawal form, the embattled candidate emphatically said that he will not withdraw.

Mr Rhodes-Vivour explained that the party used Mr Awamaridi as a placeholder because they wanted a “credible” candidate to “come and use their platform.”

He also said that “these placeholders do not pay the premiums that candidates paid for those nomination forms.

“You also find that these placeholders sign withdrawal letters before their names are submitted.”

He added the party has not received any petition from Mr Awamaridi.

What Mr Rhodes-Vivour said he can do for Lagos: that his core agenda is to “imbibe transparency and accountability in our system” because the state “still operates in a very opaque system in relation to their finances.

“Lagos State prides itself in having been generating so much money from the people of Lagos State, and that should go with the social contract,” he said.

“There must be a direct link between the taxes they are paying and the value they are getting from the state.

“It cannot be a situation where people are being taxed in multiple ways, but there is no direct benefit that you see to yourself as a resident of Lagos state.”

He also said that he will ensure that the transportation system, education and health sector work efficiently to serve the people of Lagos.