When I was the State Chairman of Labour Party in Lagos State, and I had the opportunity to stand with someone to clinch the governorship ticket of the party in the 2023 general elections in the country, I didn’t think of tribe, or ethnic linings of the person, or anybody else. I just felt he was a Lagosian, good enough to be the governor of the state, which normally should qualify him as the governor of Lagos State. But immediately he got the ticket, he started projecting himself as a tribalistic Nigerian from the Igbo tribal extraction in Nigeria. He turned his back against all the prominent Yoruba political actors in the party and grossly disrespected them. He was going about looking for the supports of only the ENDSARS, Alaba, Ojo, ASPANDA, Ladipo, Arena and co. Igbo Nigerians-dominated markets and places in the state. I advised him to behave well and should let us go and beg all the Yoruba inclined leaders of the party like Alh. Moshood Salvador, we might have offended, during the period of the primary election, but he bluntly refused. Rather, he started going about churches, preaching messages he knew nothing about as Peter Obi was also doing, and was arrogantly calling himself the Peter Obi of Lagos. He refused to listen to associate with Yoruba inclined leaders, elders and many other experienced political actors of the party in the state.
He stayed away from other candidates of the party and refused to relate and associate with them. He stayed away completely from all the actors that matter in the party almost, and was very rude to many of them.
I knew him as Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, a Yoruba son from prestigious Lagos indigenous family in the state. But, immediately he became the official flag bearer of the party, he called himself CHINEDU, and started going about thinking, acting, talking and campaigning for the election as Chinedu. In a Yoruba sensitive state like Lagos!
I was in an occasion of prominent Igbo leaders in Lagos State with him at Ajao Estate, during the election period, where he boldly stood before the camera of the press men, introduced himself as CHINEDU, and said he was interested in becoming the governor of Lagos State to protect the interest of Igbo people in Lagos State. He even went ahead to officially endorse the candidate of PDP for the Lagos West senatorial election that day, against the candidate of his own party, Labour Psrty. Sadly also, he refused to acknowledge my presence in that occasion as his leader in the party.
I knew his wife and mother were Igbos. I knew he couldn’t speak Yoruba at all. I knew he wasn’t brought up here in Lagos. I knew it is his mother, who brought him up out of wedlock in the Eastern part of the country, when she had issues with his father. I knew he had no plenty money of his own to run the election. I had an idea that Gbadebo came all the way from London to play politics here in Nigeria. I had an idea he wasn’t a proper Lagos inclined boy, like some of us. I knew that Socio-orientationally he is not a Yoruba culture, ethics and value inclined person.
But, all of that weren’t in my consciousness, when I stood for him to get the ticket. I just wanted to run the operations of the election for us to win for the party, so that I could make a name for myself as the State Chairman of the party, and I thought GRV was the right aspirant at that particular time the party could use as a tool to achieve it.
I wasn’t tribal conscious, when I did all that for him, but immediately he got the ticket, he changed his name to CHINEDU, and foolishly told the whole world publicly with his mouth he wasn’t a Yoruba inclined person.
And that is a person, who wants to govern Lagos State, one of the South West YORUBA States in Nigeria.
I thought I would be working with a Yoruba inclined candidate of the party to run the operations of the election, but little did I know that the person I gave the ticket to, was CHINEDU, who wanted to govern a Yoruba State, even when he doesn’t know how to speak the politico-structural language of the state, or know anything about its operational culture and tradition.
– Olukayode Salako
