Lagos APC slams Afenifere for backing Rhodes-Vivour instead of Sanwo-Olu
Labour Party governorship candidate for Lagos State Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour poses for a portrait during a meeting with members of his campaign team at his office in Lagos, Nigeria, on March 3, 2023. – The two major defeated candidates in Nigeria’s disputed election on Thursday challenged the victory of ruling APC party’s Bola Tinubu, with one rival appealing to courts and the other calling the results “a rape of democracy”. (Photo by Patrick Meinhardt / AFP)
• Says group sacrificed gov’s feat
on altar of bitter politics
• Group tips LP candidate as best
to transform Lagos
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, yesterday, frowned on the endorsement of Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, by the factional leader of Afenifere, Supo Shonibare.
The party, in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Seye Oladejo, said the APC wasn’t surprised at the endorsement, saying the faction (Afenifere) has always backed wrong candidates out of malice, bitterness, hatred, envy and political frustration.
He said: “We would ordinarily have ignored this non-event but it will be a disservice to the public if the records are not set straight. As elders and purported stakeholders in Lagos State, it was difficult to acknowledge the landmark achievements of the incumbent governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, across the famed THEMES agenda.”
Meanwhile, an elite socio-cultural organisation, Cultural Credibility Development Initiative (CCDI), has endorsed the governorship candidate of Labour Party (LP) in Lagos State, Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.
In a statement signed by its President, Goddy Uwazurike, the group said: “Without mincing words, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has what it takes to reverse Lagos State from being a touted dilapidated mega city to an oriental nation-state, given the mix of the diversities of ethnic cultures it hosts as Nigeria’s citizens.’
The statement reads: “As former capital of Nigeria, Lagos has lost its finesse and accoutrements in cleanliness, good road infrastructures, water utilities, electricity supply, industrial hub, export potentials by sea cargo and start ups to a state bedevilled with wanton lawlessness, street urchins and derelicts, extortion, de-industrialisation, divestment and gross mismanagement of resources.
“The great vision of our forebears to build Lagos as an anchor for turning Nigeria into a first world nation in Africa has been deconstructed into a phoney gamble of personal aggrandisement, extravagance, egotism, grandstanding and luxuriant imperatives that have thrown the common man into the streets of poverty and joblessness instead of the classroom of knowledge, skill and creativity that bestrode Obafemi Awolowo’s highly respected eclectic dictum of human capital reinvigoration, resulting in Lagos State having more than two million out of school children in the 21st Century.
“Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour, having been raised from an acclaimed and decent Indigenous EKO family of original Lagos, has character, capacity, competence, stability of mind, credibility, trustworthiness, tenacity of purpose, strength to work and vision to relaunch a new Lagos in the 21st century.”
