By Tochukwu Ezukanma
One of the most egregious political blunders in Nigerian history is the election of the All Progressive Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Mohammedu Buhari, as the president of Nigeria. However, Nigerians decided to patiently wait out his presidency. Lamentably, as the expiration of his presidency approached, the Independence National Election Commission {INEC} conducted the worst election in Nigerian history. Bribed and compromised, and acting a surreal script, the chairman of INEC, Mamoodu Yakubu, in concert with Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC cabal snookered Nigerians. In his fiendish prestidigitation and ghoulish abracadabra, the INEC chairman breeched the most essential stipulations of the Electoral Act, and declared a defeated presidential contender, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect.
Tinubu is a question character. His entire life is shrouded in falsehood. Nothing about him, age, real name, place of origin, education, health status, etc., is verifiable A Tinubu presidency will aggravate and exacerbate the damages the Buhari presidency did to Nigeria. It will deepen and widen mass poverty; exalt corruption, electoral fraud and all forms of political criminality; reinforce the inordinate wealth of an elite few at the economic strangulation of the masses; glamorize terrorism, banditry, and Fulani herdsmen murderous binges; etc. It will essentially darken and thicken the pall of darkness that engulfed Nigeria, since the beginning of the Buhari presidency.
Already, the Labor Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, are laboring assiduously to upturn the APC/INEC broad day light robbery of the Nigerian electorate, and save the country from what will be the tyranny of crooks, cranks, drug barons, brigands and electoral fraudsters. Just, as Peter Obi is battling the travesty of a presidential election, , in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor is rattling the battlement of a ruthless oligarchy that, for long, retained its grip on political power through its vicious and sordid political intrigues.
It has been written that, “Revolution is the locomotion of history, and the youths are the drivers of the locomotion”. The Nigerian youths through the Labor Party is pioneering a democratic revolution. Rhodes-Vivor’s quest for gubernatorial power encapsulates the youths’ democratic revolution, which is aimed at dislodging the old, moribund corrupt order that reduced Nigeria to an international laughing stock and relegated an alarming number of Nigerians to poverty, hunger, ignorance, and homelessness. He wants to re-design, re-plan and re-build Lagos State; to change it from one of the most chaotic and unlivable cities in the world to an orderly and livable city, governed by the rule of law, transparency and accountability. In the election of March 18, 2023, Lagosians should reject the status quo, as personified by Baba Emi lokan and his errand boy, Sanwo-Olu; and elect Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor the new governor of Lagos State.
The APC propagandists are criticizing Gbadebo’s inexperience. The electorate should realize that this is one of Gbadebo’s invaluable assets. Sanwo-Olu is experienced and his experience is the bane of the state. For it is experience in corruption; thievery of public funds; you chop, I chop political patronage; political criminalities of unparalleled dimensions; kowtowing to voracious and cruel masters and godfathers; and navigating the treacherous political minefields of the APC cabal. Rhodes-Vivor comes inexperienced, untarnished, untangle and unfettered, and thus, not beholden to any Baba, mafia emperor or cabal; he will only be beholden to the people.
It is important to note that leadership is not management. Managers and rulers tend to be narrow-minded conformists prepossessed with managing the status quo. On the other hand, leaders set the moral tone and bring about a new order. Gbadebo is about to bring a new order in Lagos State, not to manage the status quo. He has demonstrated the indispensable qualities of leadership: courage, vision, independent-mindedness, powerful ego and strong will. A leader does not need tons of experience and tons of money for patronage and purchasing loyalty. A leader, naturally and effortlessly, attracts loyal and committed followers because he possesses that indescribable, indefinable magnetism that powerfully and irresistibly draws people to him.
Leadership represents a current in history, and a current, naturally and successfully, moves and carries people along towards the actualization of stated goals and objectives. Gbagbo Rhodes-Vivor has already unveiled his goals and objectives for Lagos State. He is not asking Lagosians to hold him accountable to these goals and objectives after four years. He demands that we start holding him accountable from his first day in office, and to demand a scorecard from him after his first 100 days in office. Succinctly and lucidly, he laid out his objectives for his first 100 days as governor of Lagos State.
He is the most qualified, credible, capable and honorable of the gubernatorial contenders in Lagos State. Therefore, on March 18, 2023, it behooves Lagosians to vote out Sanwo-Olu and elect Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor the new governor of Lagos State, and thus, set the state on a new trajectory – a new trajectory – premised on the rule of law, equity, social justice and elevated values, political morality and ethics.
Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
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