LAGOS 2023: Sanwo-olu, Dickson, Jandor, Rhodes-vivour In Hot Race For Governor's Seat

… As LP woos PDP to form alliance, says can’t collapse own structure for PDP

By Rasaq Adebayo

Five days to the governorship election, the gubernatorial candidates in Lagos State have entered into a hot race, set on track, struggling to outrun one other to secure the required votes to mount the covetous governor’s seat in the state.

The incumbent state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who is adjudged to be the front runner in the race, has been on his toes as well, making frantic effort to beats other contestants for his second term bid.

Though each of the candidates had been campaigning towards their ambitions in their different styles, the fashion and tempo of their campaigns have changed since the outcome of the results of the February 25 presidential/national assembly elections especially in Lagos State. Each party has been deploying new strategies to convince the electorate to buy their manifestos and vote for them.

This week Saturday, March 11, 2023, the highest political race would be terminated when the winner would emerge and a new governor would be eventually chosen by Lagosians.

The political umpires, the spectators, the observers, the analysts, the electorate and even the contestants are eagerly waiting to see who rules the state for another four years.

While the incumbent governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu is carrying the flag of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the race, the Lead Visioner of Lagos4Lagos Movement, Olajide Adediran (Jandor) will bear the jersey of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the former chairman of Surulere Local Government, Hakeem Olaogun-Dickson will be contesting on the platform of Accord Party (AP) while Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, a former PDP senate candidate is going to the race kitted with Labour Party (LP) kits.

These major parties in the game are ready to slug it out with one another for the covetous post of the state governor on Saturday, as they have, in the last one week, been devicing new strategies to be able to win the race, coming out of the experience of the last presidential/national assembly elections.

Apart from the normal door-to-door campaign, the ruling APC party has started engaging political leaders and other stakeholders especially the youths in each community, convincing them on the reasons why they should vote for the party.

The party has also charged leaders in each polling unit, ward and local government to make sure they deliver their respective areas by canvassing their people’s votes, showing them the achievements of the Sanwo-Olu led administration and educating them on why the good works should continue in Lagos State.

The party leadership has been engaging different ethnic and religious groups in the state, making them understand that the best political party for them is APC and that the best governor for them is Sanwo-Olu.

Having seen the stronghold of the APC and being afraid that the results of the gubernatorial election may not favour his party as it did during the presidential election, Rhodes-Vivour of LP said he has been trying to enter into alliance with PDP to form a strong hold to oust the ruling APC party.

He confirmed this to ECHONEWS in a telephone conversation with our correspondent, saying forming alliance with the PDP became necessary and that he has been discussing with the leadership of party to forge a common front against the APC in the governorship election to be held this week.

He said: “Yes, we are in talk with the stakeholders and owners of PDP to work together to take APC out of this government.

“We are determined to emerge victorious during the coming Saturday gubernatorial election. We have made plans to ensure everybody comes out to vote. We will not be cheated twice, INEC has promised us that there would electronic transmission of the results; they deceived us because that was not what happened during the last election, but we will not be deceived again. So, we are encouraging all our members to come out massively and we have made sufficient security plan to ensure everybody is safe.”

Though he did not disclosed whether the PDP has agreed with his alliance motive, when asked whether his own party will collapse its structure into that of the PDP to form the said alliance, Rhodes-Vivour quickly said his own party cannot collapse its structure, explaining that his LP party has more followers than PDP, adding that his party has become stronger than the PDP.

“How is that possible, Labour Party is strong, we got 900+ thousand votes and have higher votes than both APC and PDP, so it is not possible for us to collapse our structure for the PDP. We’re working with the party and they are collapsing their structure for us so that we can deliver Lagos State.”

Rhodes-Vivour has also planned to leverage on what played out during the presidential election, believing that the Ndigbo in Lagos will also vote for his party and that their votes would give him victory.

He reportedly quickly added an Igbo name to his name to show the Ndigbo that he is their kinsman, hence, his name was re-written as Gbadebo Chinedu Rhodes-Vivour as shown on Wikipedia.

Rhodes-Vivour was said to be trying to remind the Ndigbo that though he is a Yoruba man, his maternal lineage is in the Igbo origin as his mother, Mrs. Nkechi Rhodes-Vivour was from the Southeast while he also married from the same region.

He also believed that the youths, who are the majority, would vote en mass for him, appealing to them to vote for his party as they did during the last election.

Though it seems the PDP is not putting more vigour into its campaign, political analysts said the emergence of the LP has weakened the party (PDP). They believe that both LP and PDP would share their votes which would again give the APC upper hand and ample opportunity to emerge winner seamlessly.

For the Accord Party, it has still not been ascertained whether the party is going into an alliance with any other party or it is standing all alone in the race.

While speaking with ECHONEWS, the party’s flag bearer, Olaogun Dickson said he had contacted some parties to form alliance but did not get response from them, “hence, we are standing on our own and going into the competition as any other party. Though we are still expecting whether a party will come to us; for now, we are on our own as an independent party and we believe in out success.”

Earlier, ECHONEWS had reported that Dickson might pitch a tent with the ruling APC party.

However, the Accord Party candidate said he has never been in any talk with APC before.