The gubernatorial candidate of Labour Party in Lagos, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, is currently been bashed online over a comment he made praising Peter Obi’s ability to turn the fortunes of Nigeria around through exportation.
It all started when an entrepreneur, John Ashbourne, shared a picture of a ship loaded with empty containers departing the country.
“And another 4,000 empty containers leave Nigeria,” he captioned it.
Although Ashbourne later clarified that the containers weren’t totally empty, but ‘almost’.
The tweet, which was made in the early hours of Friday’s morning, generated a lot of mixed reactions from Nigerians.
One of them was from Rhodes-Vivour, who claimed that if Nigeria should maintain the status quo of only consuming, the country might be heading towards doom.
“8 out of 10 containers that come in to Nigeria return empty. It is this reason H.E Peter Obi consistently pushed the idea of moving from consumption to production. With our record high youth unemployment, incremental development/ status quo will only keep Nigeria in a Nosedive,” the guber candidate wrote.
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While many saw the politician as being toxic for losing the last governorship election to the incumbent governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, a particular writer and social commentator, Legendary JOE, thought Rhodes-Vivour was just dull.
“Only that the only thing your mediocre presidential candidate produced as Governor of Anambra was Odeku (beer). Talk is Cheap. Reason despite supposedly having a degree from MIT, the only thing you ever built was wall of Bigotry. Gbarebo o Dull,” he clapped back and calling him ‘Social Media Activist Governor.’
Legendary JOE took further swipes at him by quoting where the incumbent governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo, had accused the state’s former governor and presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, of doubling the poverty rate of the citizens during his adminstration.
“It may also have escaped shallow memory that poverty built a formidable structure in Anambra with your Agulu Messiah in charge about the same time the dangerous twins left the forbidden trenches for lease of better life in Tinubu’s Lagos,” JOE reminded the Lagos LP candidate.
Many had therefore advised both presidential and gubernatorial candidates of the Labour Party to stop heating up the polity and strategise on winning at their second attempts in next elections.
“Lol. You know, Jimi Agbaje managed to make himself a candidate repeatedly presentable by a political party for a few election cycles by, among other things, not becoming toxic to the electorate just for losing. You need to be more strategic than this. Take a break, re-assess your strategy and performance in the last election, and start building towards the next. This here cannot be it. I come in peace 🙏,” @dipo_bello advised Rhodes-Vivour.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
