2023: LP will have state that is accountable to its people

The governorship election in Lagos state from all indication will be one to watch for as the candidates vying for the elective position are out and about town daily canvassing votes.

For the candidates of Labor Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour says he is on a mission to recover the mortgage future of Lagos.

Mr Rhodes-Vivour says the most important element for any campaign and election are the voters, the people who will cast their votes for a candidate to be chosen to lead them.

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Speaking on Stand Point, Saturday’s edition with Ademola Lawrence, the Labour Party governorship candidate said he believes his party will form the next government in Lagos State.

According to him structure is very important where there is voter apathy, because the party has to do a lot of work, the party also has to buy votes and that is what the structure comes down to.

He added that Labour party is creating a new politics as it is absorbing the people who are coming out.

Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour said his priority if elected would be to make Lagos state the commercial capital of Africa.

According to him, Lagos state ranks lower than Kaduna state in terms of ease of doing business. Lagos state ranks number 19 for commercial capital which is appalling.

“Lagos state could change the world, but it’s stuck in traffic. You have people that are sitting down at least four hours in traffic every day.

“Lagos state is what it is currently because of the industrious, hard working, innovative people that live here, imagine if they had a city where they could flourish and were enabled, we’ll be number one.

“We have no business being number five, and we’ve been at this number for so long.

“Also, for the last decade, Lagos has ranked the worst livable second worst livable city in the world.

“What i have said ties into the transportation infrastructure that we’re going to deliver, It ties into government’s relationships with the people that they are serving in terms of transparency and accountability, It also ties into human capacity development and how much we invest in that, not just in education, but health care as well, it also ties into a decentralized development agenda for legal state.

Speaking further, Mr Rhodes-Vivour said if elected, he will ensure there is efficiency and transparency which is extremely important because people don’t realize how much as a state we lose because of lack of transparency and accountability.

“From 2000, when the governor budgeted about 8 billion for roads and only did about 6.8 kilometres of road, the funds then, according to World Bank benchmark, could have done 90 kilometres of road, So for every bridge that we have and we clap, we could have had four, we are instilling transparency and accountability. We are opening up legal state accounts, the contracting, the project implementation.

“Lagos state runs a government of talkinism, It has taken 20 years to do 16 km of roads but this government had a plan of 160. If you drew that kind of calculation, how many more years will it take to get 106 km? But in the same Nigeria, they did 175. Lagos to Ibadan for 1.2 billion.

“We are also not going to pay lip service to water transportation, we are going to make it the norm. We’re going to judge our waterways properly, create embankments and bring back ferries, proper ferries, into our community.

“More than that we are going to have a state that is truly accountable to its people.

” You’re not going to be any controversy that this person is taking this money out, all funds are going to be used to make the welfare of legal sands much better, especially affordable housing, especially the transparency and accountability that will be endemic in that system” he said.