Rhodes-Vivour is the new name on everyone’s lips. Like most Nigerians during this election period, I follow the news keenly. I want to know who’s winning, who’s losing gallantly, who’s campaigning with thugs and threatening people, who’s whining about Igbos taking over Lagos state…
I also know we like compound names in Lagos, Rhodes-Vivour…Sanwo-Olu
Anyway, most times, I catch most of my news on Arise TV. I enjoy Dr. Reuben Abati’s introduction of Ojinika Ojy Okpeeee. Anyway, the TV was on and droning, and I was in another room when I began to hear someone talking and talking and talking.
Oro po!
I called out to my partner, “Who’s that talkactive on TV?”
“Na Sanwo-Olu, o.”
“Shuooo, Sanwo-Olu wey no wan debate with the other party candidates? So, he can talk? I’ve never heard him talk so much.”
He wasn’t talking like an incumbent. Sanwo-Olu was campaigning on TV like a newcomer. There was nothing assertive about his campaign.
I had to come to watch the TV myself. True, true, o it was Oga Sanwo, expounding theories and all whatnot. I didn’t like the desperation and apparent fear with which he was campaigning. This is an incumbent for goodness sake, why was he talking like a challenger, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour or even Dr. Abdul-Azeez Adediran, aka Jandor…not that I have heard anything from Jandor but, hey, we’re talking about Sanwo-Olu clearly displaying APC’s fear of being chased out of Alausa.
Sanwo-Olu got talking because of Rhodes-Vivour
I had never heard Sanwo-Olu talk for longer than 3 minutes in all the four years he’s been governor of Lagos state. The moments I have caught him on camera giving speeches haven’t been more than 3 minutes max, after which he would raise his hands, politician style and exit with his entourage fiercely shoving people aside to make way for him.
But these days, I have seen Sanwo-Olu on the streets of Lagos, more times than I care to count and it’s easy to know why. There is one “unknown” but quite popular guy from the Labor Party aka Elupee, his name is Gbadebo Rhodes –Vivour and he is giving Sanwo-Olu cold sweats!
Gbadebo Rhodes –Vivour has been so in our faces, he was practically blurring out Sanwo-Olu. The Elupee man is talking up a storm, he is making us realise that APC isn’t the only party for Lagos state. He is challenging the status quo and thankfully, he seems to know what he is talking about.
It hasn’t helped with the way Elupee has swept across the country, knocking off APC’s long-held positions with ease, especially in Lagos state. Sanwo-Olu that had hitherto ignored calls for debates and campaigns had suddenly realised the people have the power in their PVC’s and they will use it.
APC hasn’t got over the fact that Alimosho caved in to Labour Party’s Elupee. That hurt must run deep. This is in part why oga Sanwo is now so visible. Maybe that is why there will be an Oro, a Yoruba cult outing tomorrow. Usually, Oro cult only comes out at night but it’s been announced Oro would be coming out in the midnight ending at 5 am, ostensibly to scare the bejesus off would be Elupee contenders. The people behind it claim it’s to “cleanse the land,” but from what exactly?
Suddenly Oga Sanwo is everywhere
Anyway, back to this newly ubiquitous Sanwo-Olu. I have seen him eating Cold Stone Ice cream while “mall-ing” with his hefty overdressed bodyguards. My guess is he is trying to appeal to millennials, but guy, these kids don’t even go to the mall.
I have seen Sanwo-Olu meeting and greeting in a church; this one was quite embarrassing, I must confess. Oga Sanwo, I hear the pastor of Harvester’s church, where you were snubbed, had to apologise to the congregation for bombing them with your presence. I hear you weren’t even invited. Didn’t your PR agency tell you millennials are like that? You don’t just descend on them like that, these kids no send o.
I have seen Sanwo-Olu trotting off to appeal to Igbos at the marketplaces but who says the everyday Lagos Igbo man cares about who the governor of the state is so long as he has an enabling business environment?
That’s what everyday Nigerians really want, not the division along tribes and religions, these things don’t divide us as much as politics.
Let’s be real here, something has happened to Sanwo-Olu and it is Elupee.
Elupee is the name giving Sanwo-Olu the impetus to meet with the people he had snubbed for four years. These days, Sanwo-Olu is everywhere you never thought he would be. His PR agency is just pushing him from one hair-brained idea to another.
Elupee is the name hounding his dreams and making him break out in cold sweat. At this stage, if the elections are further postponed, Sanwo-Olu would attend the opening of an envelope.
Elupee!
Elupee is the logo some ignorant APC members think represents Igbo. That’s why the likes of MC Oluomo can make open threats to “Mama Chinedu.” He can threaten non-Yoruba speakers to stay home if they won’t vote for APC. And yet, hasn’t been arrested!
Oluomo doesn’t get that it’s not only “Mama Chinedu” who is voting against thugs like him. There’s Mama Sayeed, Mama Lekan, and Alhaja Sheri who’ve had enough of area boys. There’s Kelvin an Ijaw boy who’s been sleeping under the bridge and joined the Area boys at Oshodi who would like a better life. There are hundreds of non-Igbos and Yorubas, who have been robbed and raped by area boys. These thugs do not discriminate before they descend on innocent citizens making you wish you had taken another route home. These are the ones coming out to vote and saying no more.
If however, Sanwo-Olu comes back as governor, then I think he should not forget to go and thank the Igbos whom they are already blaming for losing Lagos in the presidential election.