Rhodes-Vivour warns Tinubu against taking loan to monetise 2027 polls

CITIZENS COMPASS—Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the 2023 Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in Lagos State, has alleged that the foreign loans the Federal Government of Nigeria persistently take since the inception of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration are being taken to make the 2027 elections in the country a situation of either Tinubu or nothing.

This was what he implied when he spoke in a recent interview with some senior journalists on the part by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to employ the issues of ethnicity in politics in prosecuting the elections and the imperativeness of a coalition by the opposition leaders to face the incumbent in its movement to unseat him in the 2027 exercise.

According to Rhodes-Vivour, “You saw how tightly contested 2023 was. If we are fair, you will see that there was an attempt by former President Muhammadu Buhari, now late, to conduct a free and fair election. There was a genuine attempt that we’ve seen, to ensure that the election would not be monetised.

“Now, that’s not going to be the case. You have seen a huge amount of money that is being borrowed by this government, that is what they are using the money for. A lot of these funds would come in to monetize these elections,” he warned Nigerian electorate, especially residents in Lagos State to prepare their minds ahead of the coming general elections.

On what the opposition to which he belongs are doing to ensure that the plans and strategic plots to rig by the ruling party will not overpower them, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour told the team of editors that the eyes of Nigerian voters are being opened to the basic election rigging machineries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which he said included agbero (thugs), vote buying, the police and collusion with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He then explained how they are sensitizing the people to see the evils of those political tools, urging them to use “vote and stay with your votes” as counterbalance for the APC’s official rigging machines.

“We are letting people know from the beginning of our campaign that this is not a situation where you are going to vote and go home. All these thugs, all these Agberos, how many are they compared to us? The reason why they can do these things that they do is because they go after one person, and everybody’s running away.

“Look at what happened during #EndSARS when they brought buses of these thugs with machetes to Alausa, they were chased and they ran away.”

He then said, “So, we must be organised; our campaign is going to sensitise people. We are making a lot of arrangements, I assure you. It is very painful to understand that the people who have been in charge of the state for over 20 years have to resort to violence and intimidation to win an election.

“They have had the benefit of over 20 years; I should not even be a threat. I should not be a challenge. I am just 42 years old. I contested when I was 40 years old. I should not be a challenge no matter how smart I am if they have touched the lives of the people. They should be able to say ‘omo boy, just sit down, these people are doing well for us; our life is better, our children are in good schools, let them continue.’”

But, he said, “These people they are ruling over, what is it that they want? Do you think that the people in Ojo or Ajeromi or Amuwo do not like Tinubu, just because he is Yoruba? No, it is because they have been dealing with bad governance. Badagry Local Government is made up of indigenous Lagosians, yet they consistently vote in favour of the opposition. Why? It is because they have been abandoned for a long time, and they are also part of the state.

“For a long time, what the government has done is to punish them more. Oh, you did not vote for me, no development is coming to you! Now, it has built that resentment to the extent that it is now what it is. After a while, the opposition is making issues, they now go and do that Badagry Road,” he said.