By Chukwudi Nweje
Governorship Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Lagos State in the 2023 election cycle, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has asked residents and indigens of Lagos State to rise and resist what he termed a ‘agberocracy’ being forced on the state by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government.
He also faulted President-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on his statement that the elections are over and that the healing process should commence.
However, Rhodes-Vivour at a press conference in Lagos, yesterday, said there cannot be healing unless all the injustices perpetrated by the APC during the election are redressed.
He said, “Tinubu called for healing yesterday, but healing cannot happen without justice. The APC unleashed evil on Lagosians, diabolically with their fetish rites and curses during the day, and physical violence against all Lagosians, yet they want the peace of a graveyard, they want the healing of the dead.
“Lagosians, and Lagosians at large. We cannot afford to have an agberocracy – or a military type of government that will use violence and diabolical means to create a one-party state – from Ikoyi to Ikeja to Ikorodu, we were all disenfranchised.
“They could not campaign on their past records, so they stoked ethnic strife. For the ambition of one man and his cult, the entire credibility that Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had built over the last four years was ripped into shreds. For the ambition of one man, we saw our traditional institutions reduced to pawns, tools, Oro rites that are done at night were done during the day, invoking in broad day light the spell that Senator Tinubu and his cult have used to keep Lagos bound. We want a governor that has empathy, love, good governance that is open and accountable.”
Rhodes-Vivor said that what happened on March 18 was not an election but violence and war willing unleashed on the people of the state by the APC, which he said exposes the true vision the party has for Lagos State
He further said, ” On Saturday, we saw their vision for Lagos and agberocracy, and we will fight through all legal channels to birth our Lagos. What happened on Saturday March 18 was not an election, it was violence on multiple levels, diabolically and physically. On this ambition they sowed seeds that could potentially lead to outcome like the Rwandan genocide.”
He said the desperation of the APC at both the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25 and the governorship and states House of Assembly elections on March 18 is testimony that there would not be free and fair elections under an Asiwaju Tinubu presidency.
He added, “Lagosians, our enemy are not our neighbors or visitors, or fellow Lagosians with diverse tongues. Our common enemy is violence, insecurity, poverty, stagnation, corruption, and underdevelopment. It is these same people responsible for these, that have weaponized poverty and ethnicity to distract us from their evil endeavors and diabolical activities.
“We will never have a free and fair election under a Tinubu presidency. They have tried to destroy years of delicately balanced ethnic relations, years or inter-marriage and friendships, years of commerce, and years of building Lagos into the economic juggernaut that it is. I call on the silent majority, decent and cultured Lagosians, indigenous Lagosians and Lagosians at large to speak out.”
He appreciated LP supporters for their resilience during the election and pledged to take take care of the medical costs of supporters injured in the election violence.
“I want to thank Lagosians for their courage for making decisions based on hope and resisting fear. Our message was about empathy, love , good governance that is open and accountable.
“I reach out to you to say I am with you I feel your pain and we myself the deputy governor are by your side. We have launched the platform GRV cares 2023 and anyone who has suffered violence should upload their picture, hospital bills and police report and we will help towards offsetting these bills,” he said..