Labour Party candidate in the 2023 Lagos State governorship election, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, spoke with The Punch about the chances of the African Democratic Congress in the 2027 elections, among other issues.
When he was asked about allegations from critics who labelled him as tribalistic, Rhodes-Vivour responded that such people were being intentionally obtuse because they wanted to create a certain framing.
He said they were attempting to use bigotry as a tool to divide people and distract them from the real issues that mattered, describing it as a divide-and-conquer strategy.
Further talking, he said, “It is something they have always done. One thing that I would apologise for is my statement during an interview with Channels TV that ‘I don’t think in Yoruba’. This is because as a politician, one must grow and one must get better.”
He said he had been talking about the people’s suffering and the young men on the streets, explaining that those youths had become thugs and drug addicts with poor education and healthcare. He added that he was addressing issues that mattered, but that when the reporter put it as, “they say you do not think in Yoruba,” he lost his composure during the interview.
Reflecting on the politician he had become, he said it was no longer about the literal truth of his words but about how others could twist and manipulate them to confuse people, and that he ought to have been more composed before answering that question. He insisted it was not an insult and that he had been speaking about himself personally.
He also said that when he slept, the language of his dreams was English, while some people might dream in Yoruba, and argued that if they had not been a conquered people none of them would be speaking English today — a reality he said was not his fault. He finished by alleging that the APC engaged in propaganda. See, More, Here>>>>
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