Ex-LP chairman explains why Rhodes-Vivour lost bid for Lagos gov’ship seat

Kayode Salako, the former chairman of the Labour Party in Lagos State, has alleged that Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the party’s candidate for governor in the state, developed an inflated sense of self-importance when the party won the state on February 25 during the presidential election.

In an interview with News Central TV on Friday, Salako stated that Rhodes-Vivour publicly endorsed candidates from the opposition party, the PDP, without the party leadership’s consent because he started to think he would become the next governor of Lagos State.

He claimed that despite their efforts to warn the LP candidate about his behaviour, he showed a significant degree of defiance toward them, adding that this was the reason most of the members of the party eventually worked against him at the poll.

Salako said, “When Labour Party won Lagos State during the presidential election and National Assembly period, all of us were involved. It was a game of all of us. Our passion was there. Everybody was involved. But immediately after the victory of the party at the presidential election, then that tug of pride came to Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, he started seeing himself as the governor of Lagos State already.

“You know he is a youth; he is young. And then tug of youthful exuberance. People already calling him His Excellency; he thought because the party has won the presidency. Then automatically, the same thing would be repeated for the governorship. He would not have made some of us angry if he didn’t come out openly to start endorsing the candidates of PDP which is an opposition party to our party.

“He started endorsing the candidate of the party he came from which he claimed he had left. He started publicly to come out to say he is now with PDP. He said, it is my PDP people that I am banking on to vote for me,” the former chairman said.

However, Rhodes-Vivour, in his response, stated that he won’t respond to the LP chieftain due to his medical condition.

He made this response through a tweet, noting “I am very empathetic when it comes to mental health conditions and I do take it very seriously. As a result, I will not be responding to Kayode Salako because I know for a fact that he is Bi-Polar. Sadly, this condition is used by others to manipulate him for political gain. I wish him well and hope he gets the medical attention he needs.”