Rhodes-Vivour: I’ll Campaign in Yoruba Ahead of 2027 Lagos Election

Kehinde Adeleye

The Lagos governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has said he plans to conduct his campaign in Yoruba ahead of the 2027 governorship election.

Rhodes-Vivour disclosed this during an interview on Arise TV on Thursday while responding to questions about his inability to speak Yoruba, an issue that attracted criticism during his 2023 governorship campaign.

The ADC candidate said he had since taken steps to learn the language, noting that language and culture were important to his engagement with voters in Lagos.

“This tribal thing, speaking language situation and all that. Yes, culture and language is very important and I’ve gotten a Yoruba teacher, and I’ve learned Yoruba, and I’ll campaign in Yoruba, and that is wonderful,” he said.

Rhodes-Vivour, however, said language and ethnicity would not be the sole focus of his campaign, pointing to issues he said affect residents across Lagos regardless of their backgrounds.

“My passionate interest is to ensure that we have a Lagos that no longer stinks,” he said.

He listed flooding, housing and traffic among the challenges confronting residents, arguing that the problems cut across ethnic and linguistic lines.

“All of us are going to, when you translate it, all of us are going to hear the smell. Everybody is experiencing the failure of our flooding, of our housing crisis, of the traffic, of the loss of dignity of Lagosians, and that connects all of us, regardless of language,” he added.