Architect Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour, the standard bearer of Labour Party in the last Governorship election in Lagos state is a man of many parties having distinguished himself in health, politics and architectural sectors. In a chat with the members of League of Yoruba media practitioners, the Isale Eko born and founder of Rhodes Vivor foundation bares his mind on many issues, from last election, his background, recent brouhaha at Lagos state house of assembly and his next step after 2023 elections. Excerpts
Tell us about yourself
Orukọ mi ni Gbadebọ Rhodes Vivor. Mo jẹ oludije gomina ipinle Eko labẹ asia ẹgbẹ oselu Labour Party iodun 2023.
I am also a businessman, an architect, and I have different interests in commodity trading and technology, and I am the president of the Rhodes Vivor Foundation, which focuses on bringing micro health insurance to different communities across Lagos state.
A situation where, you know, a lot of people when they are sick, they just go and take ‘agbo’
and later they have liver or kidney problems.
We want people to take medicines based on diagnostic tests, and that’s why we are giving them that opportunity. If you are not feeling well, you are activated, you can speak to a doctor, you can do a diagnostic test, and it’s something that has made a lot of people very happy. So I’m very proud of that.
I come from the Rhodes Vivour family of Lagos state, Isale Eko. Our home used to be 38 Igbosere which is where currently City Hall stands, because
the family donated land to Lagos to build the City Hall. And I’m a lover of Lagos, I’m a lover of Nigeria, I’m a lover of humanity and I’m happy to have you here with me. Thank you.
Tell us life after 2023 election
Thank you.
Life after 2023, thank God we’re able to stand our ground. We fought for our mandate all the way to the Supreme Court. We made sure that we have not been quiet. We have been holding government accountable. We are the ones that exposed how the current governor used 200 million of common wealth to pay for his personal legal fees.
We are the ones that also highlighted how the government are using our money to pay for APC events.
Highlighted the cost and the way that they are spending money on cars that cost three times what it actually costs in the marketplace.
And we’ve highlighted a lot of things that the government has done that has not been in the interest of the people.
So we have not gone to sleep the way lot of people say that politicians behave where in six months of the election they will come back out. We’ve been active. We have been engaging the government.
And we have been doing a lot of community work.
We’ve been building our base, engaging people that do not know us before. We have been looking at the mistakes that we made at the last election to get better and prepare better so that we can be a better candidate for the people of Lagos, thank you.
Sir, you are talking about a proper ọmọ Eko pataki?
Because you are from the real indigen of Lagos State
Did you try to imbibe the culture on your children, your family?
Certainly, You know, the Yoruba culture is one of the Ọmọlúwàbí culture, which is integrity, which is being a man of your word, which is being a good person in general.
Aside that, it’s also about learning the language, understanding the language. And this is something that, you know, a lot of us in my generation, even up to today, a lot of children of people that are Yoruba are not able to speak Yoruba.
Why? Because they’re not spoken to when they’re growing up. Or they went to secondary schools or primary schools where it was called vernacular and you get punished for speaking the language in school.
So now there is an active effort for people to learn the language and i am teaching my children Yoruba so that they don’t have to deal with the things that I’m dealing with and learning Yoruba in old age.
It’s always easier to learn when you’re a child, when you’re a baby and you grow with it.
And thankfully, there are a lot of apps, there are a lot of books that we can use to do this. so it’s very good.
And also, it’s also about knowing our history. You know, our history is one of greatness.
In the borders of Nigeria, the Yoruba language, the culture, Ifa, all these concepts are bigger than Nigeria.
You go all the way to Cuba, South America, even back to ancient Egypt, all these things are connected to Yoruba culture.
That’s why it’s not a mistake when they say Oduduwa came from the east.You look at the syntax of the Yoruba language and the syntax of the Kemetu, which is the ancient Egyptian. The same words, the same pronunciation, the same thing.
And so we also have to look at our history outside of Nigeria, trace it back to great African empires. And that’s something I’m very passionate about. Thank you.
Are you assuring us that you are going to represent Yoruba religion positively ?
There is nothing negative about it. The problem in life is that bad news travels faster than
good news. You understand? If somebody does something bad today, this same afternoon they
will hear it all over again. But if somebody does something good, the news might get out
maybe in a week or two weeks time.
The basis of IFA, the probability, the ‘odu’, the negative and the positive, that is the foundation of computers. That is the foundation of this
phone that you are holding.
A lot of Nigerians don’t know. When the Europeans came and they understood all the probabilities and everything, that is what they now used to code.
when they say there is analog, there is binary code, everything. That is what they used to build computers. And look at us today.
The average mother, if she hears that her son is interested in Ifa, she will start praying, she will start crying, she will start saying that the child should go for deliverance but this is something valuable that we have to explore.
I was speaking to the son of an army general and he told me that before they dismiss his father, they were working with using IFA as a means of transmitting
information among themselves. You know how in the army there are different codes, there’s
a morse code. We were about to have our own code using IFA.
But they dismissed all those generals and, you know, unfortunately in Nigeria we don’t know how to transmit information and as they dismissed them, that whole project died with them.But that is a very beautiful application.
Most of us here, if your child says that they want to go to the cinema and watch Thor, nobody will say anything. But Thor and Sango are the same. It’s the truth. Thor and Sango are the same.
If you look at the Yoruba pantheon there are so many similarities. Ogun and Iris are the same.Esu and Aries are the same. I even go as far as saying Oya and this powerful woman that I forgot her name, they have one knowledge they are all the same, very very similar.
There is a lot that we still have to learn about our history our culture and our beliefs and for me It is very positive, Ifa is not just religion it is history there is silence in Ifa as well. there is lot of deep knowledge in it.
Personally my vision for health care, it is a health care that combined traditional herbal medicine with European and Asian preventative medicine.
When you have this composition,it is not only rich people that we be able to have good health care.With the European type of health care that we have,if you want to get good health care you have to be spending a lot of money but there is lot of other deep knowledge that we already have that we haven’t tested, we haven’t researched, we are not exploring .
there should be an institution that test all these herbal remedies. We test it, we researched, we bring science to it so that we can make it official we can formalized it and have herbal traditional as part of that medical communion and we also look at the Asian type of things.
I talk about that because after 2023, I had serious problems with my knee. That to walk proper stir a lot of pain. It was in London so I went to see a doctor and he said I should do an MRI I did MRI and they said I should do knee replacement and I was like I am just forty they said I should do knee replacement it is not as of I use it to play ball and make money so I said no o I am not doing knee replacement.
As I was leaving the hospital on the side of the road, there was this Chinese acupuncture, I said let me try it, it was as if Jesus touched me, from limping, I came out walking straight.
so for me I look and be like what this people are suffering in pain in Nigeria they are just taking medicine spoiling your liver and you will no have a secondary disease.
For me, I feel that our health care system we need to bring traditional medicine, European medicine Chinese medicine we need to bring it together and also with education,
there are people when I was in isale Eko, like three four weeks ago,I met a man he told me that he has gone back to the university to study Ifa science.
We can’t say that everything that we were before the white Men came was bad now we are completely lost.
All those years of civilization has gone down the drain and you will pick the good, you can leave he bad. I didn’t say everything we were doing was good o, I don’t want anybody to be going back to be killing twins. I don’t want that anymore but there are some good there that we should do. That is what Indian did, that is what China did, that is what Japan did.
That is why they are who they are today. Indian is colonized by the British but after the British left they took the British science, took the British education,They kept their culture, they kept their religion,they kept their beliefs system.
So an Indian man does not have Identity crisis. That is what I think we need to push for. Thank you.
Do you have any relationship with traditional rulers and chiefs?
Yes, the Ooni of Ife is a father to me, I have been to Ife several times and he gave me an award as a rural African fellow. From the Oni palace and it is something he does every year and I am a member of that, it is now a group,it is a fellowship so I am a member of that fellowship.
The Aare Ona kankanfo, Chief Gani Adams is a person that I am very familiar with. We have a relationship and the Akran of Badagary is also a father to me, very positive, very supportive one that opens his arms to me, Ayangburen of ikorodu as well is someone that is very very positive to me very friendly and I can imagine the type of pressure that I might have been on him but he still open his aafin to me, he gave me a listening ear.
Then I have relationship with some of the white cap chiefs of Lagos state and we are building it, like I said the more you stay on the race,the better it becomes. The more people you will know,the more relationships you have.
Even the Alara of Epe, have met him a number of times we build relationships. He is a nice man, very positive,very warm. I think that for me as I always say it, I want,by God grace, I will build a traditional institution where our kings, our elders will play a bigger role in policy making and government
By God grace, I am going to be running for 2027 election. Mo ma jade fun ipo gomina lọdun 2027.
and when people say that will you run again after I loose to Babajide Sanwo-Olu for me I did not loose to him.
INEC announced the results but the people knows the real results. How do you win elections and the whole state is quiet? Nobody is celebrating and you won with 700,000 people, where are those seven hundred thousand people?
There was no dancing in the street. We know the violence that they used, we know the intimidation , we know the political war that they used, we could have follows election timetable, election is on Monday and they moved it on Monday.
There is something people don’t know the real Rhodes, the original meaning, means oro, Rhodes that is my family name Orobiyi so when the British came, there was something they did, it is called translation they take the sound of the name and give the name that is similar in sound Oro roar Ogun made David so you will see lot of Lagos families expect those ones that is send to Catholic schools or sent to schools and had and such of Ogun Oro, any traditional diety or anything in their name, there was a transition that happened.
I am telling you all these stories, ‘gbogbo oro to mo so, it is simply to let you know that when Oro was done properly by our leaders by our kings, by our traditional rulers, it was done in the interest of the people. It was done to cleanse the land but this Oro of modern day is only done when they want to do occupy Nigeria. It is only done when it is like somebody has want to win office.
With all the suffering from Lagos island to epe, to Badagary, ‘Gbogbo Yoruba re shouting ebi n pawa, ebi n pawa, we have not seen someone that will come out to help us clean our land and bring in prosperity.
If there is elections tomorrow, you will hear Oro is going to happen tomorrow. Politics is making our traditional institution loose their values because your children are going to look at the history and see that their is now political Oro that moves with INEC timetable. Now how will your children respect that traditional institution.
In twenty years time and tomorrow we will say our children don’t respect culture but see what the custodian of our culture are using the culture to do and this is the problem and it goes back to Ifa where before our kings were produced by Ifa so the king is not loyal to a politician.
Is loyal to Ifa that put him in and Ifa and that king are in the interest of the people. Because the question that you will ask is that who is the best king for the people, and Ifa will bring it out but now I don’t know maybe you know o, I don’t know how many king in Southwest now are produced by Ifa that is why then politicians cough, everybody move and it should not be like that.
The king should be able to call the politicians to order and say no my people will not like this thing that you are doing, my people will not benefited from this thing you are doing, so I am going to run by God’s grace, God will strengthen me and keep all of us.
In terms of the party, I know that in the press, you are reading a lot of things, but politics is a counter sport, there are lot of interest people always crash, but as for me o, labour party at national, our issue is very small, we are in court, we are not fighting, we don’t hear that anybody took chairs to come and start beating somebody at national sectariate, we go to court, after supreme Court, it has finished.
In labour party in Lagos, we are one. We are not fighting in labour party in Lagos.I was with my state chairman on Saturday where we hosted all the women in our party structure . All the women leaders from all the wards in Lagos state we hosted all the them at the party sectariat because this week is national women’s days so we did that to start celebrating our women. They were very courageous in 2023 election.
So for me, in times of problem in labour party, it is the most peaceful party among the big three that we have in Nigeria today. Nobody is bringing DSS to be chasing people up and down and nobody is sending thugs with chair to go and be beating elders so we are peaceful o.
I thank God, I just say to myself, imagine if my parents were not alive to say ‘omo mi ni yen’ but thank God my mother is alive, my father is alive, they have done interviews, fantastic beautiful interviews where they talk about when they met, what year I was born, the house I was born and my parents were very good, they kept a lot of records so even their patients cards, your card when you go to hospital they have it, birth certificate so you will not hear any story that something happens to all my documents and I am swearing affidavit, we have all the original documents and they put out an interview to talk about it after sometimes when two people have come out to say this is our child so I don’t see that happening.
What is the original name, the origin of that name
It is Orobiyi if you go on google and just say Orobiyi road, all my uncles before they died,they changed their name to Orobiyi roads. It is the same thing as Ogunmade, Ogunmade is one of the ruling families in Lagos state.If you go to the street that are named after them, you will see Ogunmade Daves. That is the interesting thing about Lagos families, their names tell a lot of stories and a lot of easy.
Let talk about Lagos, let talk about the crisis at the state house of assembly in the last over 50 days, the emergence of a female speaker, how the house of assembly removed speaker, the return of the removed speaker and the stepping down and resignation all that happened.
What will you say about the whole drama.
It is a very very painful thing. It is very sad and a lot of people might not fully appreciate how deep this thing is so I am going to try and explain and break it down.
First Lagos state assembly is not just any assembly. Lagos politics is not just any politics. Between 19100 and 1950 there was no politics in Nigeria outside Lagos. All the politics in Nigeria happened in Lagos so Lagos state has started it politic before in term of this contemporary politics before any other state in Nigeria.
Everybody will come all over Nigeria to solve their matters in Lagos. Between that time so that is the history of this contemporary politics that we have. Then it was painful to see a later state assembly members be defiled and disgraced the way the electorate were disgrace in 2023 because we saw a situation were people that have a voice they will want to express their vote democratically but somebody else is saying no , I have the final say and I will use force, I will use violence, I will use intimidation, you the people, you can not have your say, me the one man, I have say over you the people and that is a coup.
It is not a democracy anymore because democracy power. You are even getting power through the barrel of a gun or through the ballot box.in Lagos state they are doing something that is in the middle. When you have the pretending process of election and someone else is using force to come and get what they want.
The DSS said they aren’t the one that invaded the house of assembly. I am sure you might have been lot of news about the DSS and they said they aren’t the one. So who are those people that came, nobody has answered that question. Who are those people that came with gun into the state assembly? Nobody have answered that question.
They said they found guns in that place that are link to Obasa the speaker, what investigation has been done to the legalities of that stopper of weapons and why is a stopper of weapons be stopped at the state assembly.
Nobody has answered that question. His people came together and say they are removing him, a majority, this is a man that has been speaker for over ten years, a majority of people said they are removing him because of financial misappropriation.
One of those things was using seventeen billion naira to build a gate. That gate is not carrying to heaven. It is not bringing your people that you might have lost back from somewhere. It is just a gate for you to drive your car and seventeen billion and people have not eaten. People have not eaten three times a day and you are spending seventeen billion on a gate and there was no resignation.
They said it is a family affairs meanwhile that same family affairs is the most expensive state assembly in Nigeria. 128 billion is their budget. It is the largest budget in Nigeria. The one that comes after about 46 or 47 billion.so Lagos state assembly their budget is about five state budget combined. That is what they are calling family affairs.
Family affairs that they are not paying for, that we the citizens is paying for so we will pay all that money and this is what we get. I am proud of the state assembly for standing their ground the first time this invasion by unknown gunmen came into the state assembly, the second time when honorable Obasa came again,they stood their grounds. They went to court.