 Tonight on Plus Politics, ahead of the governorship polls, Labour Party reacts to allegations against Lagos State governorship candidate, Badebo Rotsvaivo. And in objection to the presidential election outcome, Attiku leads PDP protests to INEQ headquarters. This is Plus Politics. My name is Nyam Gour. I get it. The governorship candidate of the Labour Party, LP in Lagos State, Badebo Rotsvaivo's election campaign has been energized. Following last Saturday's presidential election result, that saw his presidential candidate, Peter Obi, flaw his counterparts in the ruling party of the all-progressive Congress, APC. Bola Tinubu now president-elect in his home state, Lagos. The 39-year-old governorship hopeful who has stepped up his campaign drive called on Lagosians, especially the youths, not to be deterred by the outcome of Saturday's presidential and national assembly elections. But to come out on mass and vote out the ruling APC in the Guba and state assembly polls. The governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Badebo Rotsvaivo, recently reacted to a viral message claiming he is an Igbo man. He has seen said he is an original Lagosian and a true son of his father, a lawyer, Mr. Olawerli Rotsvaivo. Joining us to discuss this tonight is Shergun Adebanjo, who is the director general Badebo Rotsvaivo governorship campaign of the Labour Party. And he's reacting rather to the allegations ahead of the March 11 polls. Good evening and welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Okay, you are the DG of, how would I call it, the reigning Labour Party, right? Here in Lagos. Your party just got a court order compelling INEC to transmit results electronically and from the polling units in governorship and House of Assembly elections. How does that make you feel now? Oh, very, very excited and pleased about that. We have called for that. In fact, I have gone on record to be quoted that the officials of INEC, I do expect they might be in jail in a couple of years for high treason because what they did was that in terms of they betrayed their nation. So we're very pleased with the judgment. But the NBA, the chairman of the NBA already has said that he has given INEC like 80% in this election, the conduct of the last election. So does that give you any concern? Because if there's any litigation, it goes to the courts and the NBA chairman is already applauding the INEC. I think I chose my words deliberately when I said high treason. The law itself and INEC combined with the INEC guidelines requires that the results be transmitted electronically. And INEC, and a lot of Nigerians had placed their faith on that. And that fundamentally holds our nation together. You put this processes in in order to have a process whereby people can affect peaceful change. If you frustrate that, you give people reason to break the law. So that is, and the system is set up for that. And when they betrayed that, which they did, unilaterally, and they have no excuse for it, the law says transmit electronically. And your guidelines make it that the law. You cannot unilaterally decide not to and put the whole nation at risk, including whoever wins on a processes flawed like that. You undermine their own legitimacy. And that's why I said it's high treason. For the situation, they have put the whole nation currently. But it's quite tricky because the law also says that at some point INEC can use its discretion. When they are satisfied that whatever reason they are giving that the results cannot be transmitted from the polling units, they can just use another method to do that. That's in isolated cases, right? That's in isolated cases. You can do that wholesale change in the whole system in which people went, it's almost like giving false advertising if you think about it. They had announced several, this is what we're going to do. And people had structured their monitoring and confidence on that. And then they train the game after people have acted. That's basically unacceptable. But how do you intend to make the people come out again? Because a lot of people have lost confidence. Okay, votes will count. That's one of the reasons people trooped out on mass to vote last time. Now it seems it's the same ball game they're playing. How can you get the people back to the polling units? Well, I think it's important that people follow the process because this election, which is closer to them, is actually more important. The only thing that's only required that's going to change that they need to change now is exercise more vigilance. And we have put steps in place as well to actually protect the vote and the integrity of the vote this time around. What happened was people anticipated there'll be electronic transmission. So there wasn't enough supervision at the coalition centers. And that's where a lot of the funny business went on. And this time we're ready for that. Do you think there is hope for the Labour Party in the presidential election? Because I understand you didn't take it lying down. You're saying that there's going to be steps that will be taken, legal steps, to make sure that if the mandate belongs to Labour Party, it will be reclaimed. Do you think there's hope for you? Absolutely. I mean, I don't think the current announcement about INAIC is going to stand because if you follow the law, this is not a legitimate result. Because, I mean, no one can have confidence in it. It's not necessarily who the winner is. It's as long as the process is legitimate enough to permit people to accept the outcome. And they haven't done that because it's like in any court of law. The fundamental rule is not that you enforce justice, but justice must be seen to have been done. That's the problem with the INAIC process here. We don't see them to have undertaken a fair and transparent process. And that undermines the entire result, regardless of what the actual outcome is. Okay, so you are confident that people will turn out on Saturday for the votes? Absolutely, because it is in their best interest too. Let me explain what's going on here. If you have elected a government in which the process is illegitimate, what do you think the hope for future election, when that person gets into government from a flawed process that you'd ever get free and fair elections? This is where you have to hold the fort on the state level, with the government closer to you. And then you have governors who would advocate and fight for a proper process for your votes to count. But do the people know that? That's the education we're doing currently. How much are you at the grassroot? Well, you saw the results at the last polls. Was that really because of your grassroot mobilization or the OB factor? Because that's what the people say. Well, it's one and the same thing. I think one thing that all God of politicians have missed is that they are facing a different type of voter. Both the way he's communicated to and the fact that, particularly in a place like Lagos, where for some reason most people were surprised with the results, one thing I've come to learn, and which is why bad able is actually, I don't think it's been acknowledged for the courage he has shown to stand up to the climate in Lagos. There's really a climate of fair and intimidation. So most people wouldn't reveal how discontent they are with the present party. And that's really where our campaign goes and where we know they've gotten the message. Every, in fact, the APC campaigns for us with their bad record of corruption and fair and intimidation and violence and just the overhang from ensars to the whole culture that breeds this, what people call the agri-cultural, which is really, I guess, the exploitation of our youth who should be properly engaged, doing viable, productive things. It's an industry of its own anyway. But think about how that has grown under the 24 years of APC role. That is a spent force and the people have come to realize it. They have no new ideas and that's why they have this negative campaign against Badebo because they don't want people to be, to actually focus one on their bad record. But more importantly, which is actually why I'm here, is the exciting and elegant solution that Badebo has in his manifesto for Lagos. And if you permit me, I would explain to you. For instance. Okay, we'll get to your manifesto, but first of all, let's address this issue of what you just raised about negative campaign. Some people question his loyalty to Lagos. They say he's not legitimately Lagos. You don't get to be more Lagos than it roads viral. If you know anything about the history of Lagos, where you had one of the first, I believe it was Supreme Court justices. Let me tell you this. The land, the iconic city hall in Lagos was built, belonged to Badebo's family. I think that says enough. That family goes back 400 years. There isn't a more indigenous family to Lagos. It's as indigenous as it comes, bottom line. It's not questionable. You can't re-bought, it's just not the truth. He's as indigenous as it comes. He's a pure Lagos indigent. And the records are there to show. Compared to the other. I would challenge even the present governor, all the way to Tinumbo, to give a record of family heritage that compares to that for Badebo in Lagos. Wow, okay. There's another issue. There's a video, preferably going around the social media, where Badebo's mother said that if Lagos wants to develop like the East, they should vote Badebo. Some people find that very insulting. How do you compare Lagos to the East? The largest economy in Nigeria, or even Africa, and all that. So what's your response to that? My response to that is this, right? The people who get stuck in traffic for six hours, it's not what Badebo's mother, I wasn't even aware of that comment. My point is, all these things are dug up by the AFC as a distraction. I honestly think it's a risk by the APC, and I think it's a responsibility to an ASC of the press not to let them get away with this. Why do I say this? Somolou has not even issued a manifesto or any agenda for his program for the four years. What is he going to do? He ran away from the debates and this is the person who wants a job. He's like saying you want a job and you refuse to go for the interview. What are people voting for him on? What are they going to hold him on? What has he said he will do? And that's what I'm saying. And more, furthermore, the primary things that affect negotiations he has not addressed. Badebo has a plan, like I said, for instance, to solve traffic. He wants to be known as the governor that solves traffic once and for all in Lagos. And it's a simple plan that people should challenge him on and let him show how he's going to pay for it and get it done. He's going to build four rail lines in four years, which is about the same kilometer of rail lines that the federal government built, 169 kilometers, I believe, for the same amount of money that Lagos State used to build 12 kilometers. So I mean, that's an easy- That's been on for like 16 years. So he wants to do it. It sounds so Jesus, like I'll break the temple and build it in three days. Thank you. That's because we're used to mediocrity. I mean, other countries, Ethiopia, Egypt have done it. The thing is you do all the lines at the same time, not this piecemeal. This government wouldn't do it not because it can't be done, because they're wedded in the current aggro system, where they tax legosians and transporters and build a mafia on top of that, where they collect revenue to fund their politics and recruit thugs to keep them in power. So their vested interest is in not providing legosians with good rail. Rather than taking all those aggroes and incorporating them into a system where they have better income and retirement plans for themselves and their children is into a structure where they're properly trained and that to be the conductors or the people servicing the rails. That's where that transition to go. You would still have the other transport walkers, but they wouldn't have anyone oppressing them and forcing them to do things, which is what is going on now. And we're here to break that. That is in transport. Now, when you solve for transporting legos, it opens up the whole economy. You almost triple the economy. So you open mass employment and you use that to solve things like housing. So housing prices go down because you widen the pool of available land because you've made places like Iroquo-Rudu-Eque and places, far-out places, accessible to people to live in and come to Legos Island and walk. So that even if you live in Legos Island because the supply demand equation is more balanced, your rental prices are reduced. So that's why the transportation thing is such a, is the signature programming is manifesto. And now people should actually hear his security plan. Before you get to security, okay, there are a few things that Legos, if they can solve, if anybody can solve, will be very interesting. Transportation is one thing or the traffic jam on the roads is one thing. You talked about rental problems. Housing problem is a very, very critical one, especially now that the developers or the realtors have taken over, they come here, buy a house, break it, do a shortlet for it and all that. And people can no longer get houses in Legos. How does the intent to solve the housing problem? Like I told you, his definite plan is threefold. First, he's gonna widen the pool of available land and houses to rent. Like I told you, make far-out places available. Secondly, within Legos, for instance, take a place like Legos Island, it's not a planned development. What should happen there is most of the places that the landlords don't even leave there. So they just build the structures, they'll poorly manage them. I mean, the place has probably given APC his largest boats, like Legos Island. Their loyalty to APC is not justified. If you go to Legos Island today, the drainage, I mean, it's not a habitable place. What should happen is the government should pull the landlords together to build higher, more modern structures and contribute to the financing for that. So it's a win-win, including with developers. So what you have is now, the landlords will have a number of the floors as theirs, which will be more than they could build on their own. And then the government now has rent-controlled units up and up and up that allows middle-income and other people to come in, so that the common residents there have the same housing they have at rent-controlled prices, but they're better. You have recreational facilities for children, basketball courts, gardens, and things like that. And that's what his program is going to do for housing. But tied into that, there's also things that his house is gonna, one thing I want people to probably get excited about is you can have a clean Lagos within six months of this administration, and the program is very simple. That's why his plans are very elegant. What he's gonna do is he's gonna marshal the number of push-cut operators that people see all around Lagos, and they're gonna be numbered, and they're gonna get put on an app, and they would have assigned streets with shovels and things given by the government, where they clean the gutters and the streets daily, and that's monitored by the citizens themselves who report on the app if their streets are not properly cleaned, and we won't pay those people. And if you drop by so many stars, we would assign you a route to someone else. So it's a self-monitoring system that cleans the whole city within six months and keeps it clean. Furthermore, his security plan, he's gonna flood Lagos with police cars. The old checkpoint system where police is stationary. So what happens, you're gonna have two-man police patrol cars. This is the way you see lag-right taxes all over Lagos. You would flood Lagos with police cars so that the police cars almost every other street so that there's a response unit between two to five minutes for any incident. And together with that, so you don't have checkpoints. But if you can get the police cars for the policemen, where will we get the manpower? The manpower is there. You have six men stationary. Why don't you just have two men or even one man in a police car? You don't need six of them because what they have six men units to respond in force. You can have six of them respond. That's how it's done in any other country. If you go to the U.S. or anyway, you see one policeman or his training with a partner and that's how the police properly the whole city. That you can't properly police the place when you have everyone concentrated in one place. All kinds, it's just inefficient. And even the manpower, the tools that carry we can deal with that. But once you have security map that and you have to invest that money because once the city is safe, the multiplier effect is in magnitude. And he's also going to now flood Lagos with solar powered street lights that are maintained by each company again. You take young men who are trained and it would have routes that they maintain the solar powered street lights so that even young ladies can feel free to walk the street safely at night. And that creates a nighttime economy. These are all things are all linked because it all helps him produce mass employment for the masses. I'd really like to get to his exciting education and planning for me. Well, one of the cardinal points of campaign for APC, especially for the presidential candidate is that the raised the bar when it comes to economy, that the raised it from a small mega amount to about 50 billion in the month and all that. How does he intend to surpass the economic records of the APC government? That's very easy. I just outlined it. If you do just the rail, you can expect the economy of Lagos to quadruple. If you do the safe policing and the night flooding the streets, you'd have a nighttime economy. That's like building a whole layer of an economy into Lagos. And then thirdly, when you do things like the education program and you stimulate the quality of Lagotians in terms of developing skill sets. And in addition to that, you do things like judicial reform. We don't have, we have an operational, but not functional judicial system in Lagos. You have a case, it takes two years to resolve a single paragraph in a contract. So what that does is it affects interest rates that banks finance housing development, for instance, and that itself dampens and doesn't stimulate the economy. What he's gonna do is going to properly fund the judiciary so that every judge has at least two clerks and a stenographer, so that every judgment or every case is resolved within six months. Those are gonna have severe, some serious multiplier effects that would benefit the economy. And now can I talk about his education plan because that's very exciting to me. Let's go right ahead briefly. Now in his education plan, like most of it is actually very simple and early guide. What he's gonna do is gonna roll out solar powered, I mean, e-learning platform to all schools. So basically what that does, as you see to your desk there, you can get classes, you know that on your laptop, that exactly the same as students in Harvard or Columbia or MIT received. So he's gonna make sure that every child in Lagos gets the best quality of education as any child in the US, England, by the same platform. He's gonna create a platform in school where students can watch their courses on the program and then the teacher interacts. And that's gonna be- Forage level of education. Are you talking- All through, from primary schools to secondary schools. But the first rollout plan was focused on, I think it's, JS is three where the science, the STEM classes start from. Cause we want to catch the other students at that level. So you have, and this program is good, you have dynamic presentations of physics and chemistry and things like ambiology. So that even teachers are trained at the same time and our quality of education improves. And that's radical. So you don't need to send kids abroad to school. You bring London basically to every school in any community in Nigeria. And I think that's really exciting. In addition to that, he's gonna invest heavily in pre-K education and the science shows that the best way to develop the mind of a child is between the ages of two and five. And we haven't invested enough in that. So he's gonna build what are called like pre-K learning centers and you attach them to all over the city, particularly to every market. So what happens is a market woman comes in, she can hand a case in to care and go and focus on selling for the day. It's almost like a daycare for children of market women. That's gonna be all over the city. And the children can watch educational programs. Well, I am sure that this man at First 2 is superb. In very few words, if you may, let me just know two other things. First of all is who is this man, Rhodes Vival? We need to know what makes him qualify for that position because you have given us lofty dreams that he has. But to have a dream is one thing, to be able to have the capacity to translate those dreams into reality is another thing. So what makes you think he qualifies? And then a final question. So just briefly, let's know, Rhodes Vival. Well, the fundamental, I mean, people are saying it. Everyone, I think enough people have read about his resume credentials. He has gone to the very best schools which only fundamentally validates his intelligence. Now to be a good leader, you need fundamentally three things. Vision, intelligence, and integrity. And then it depends on where your heart is. Your heart needs to be in a good place as in for progressive. You have to have empathy for the people and that drives the direction of your policies. Because in terms of every other skill set, you can source that from the pool in your state to draw for talent. And he has that in a measure of value. But one thing I think he has that people haven't given him credit for is his courage in standing up now to the current power structure in Lagos. And he always asks is that people come out one day, one day to stand behind them and vote next Saturday and make that change for the betterment of themselves. So they don't leave the next four years in fear and intimidation, like has become the culture in Lagos now. Okay, well, a final question, like I said, you've answered that one. If I give you time to talk about Rhodes Vival, I'm sure it could take like half a day. But we've heard that we've not, let me just say we've heard, but this is the time, like they say in football, this is an injury time. Between now and the day of election, we were expecting that, we were expecting even before the presidential election that there will be alignments and realignments and all that. And we've also heard from another party that this possibility of you coming together and working as one, especially the PDP has said something like that. So is there any hope that you are going to form an alliance with any political party, whether PDP or NRC or whatever other party? I'm glad you brought that question up. Well, the short answer is this is, I mean, this is a different kind of government that Body Boy is trying to lead. He's trying to be governor for all. So whether you join his train now or after he elects victory, there's a rumor going around like he's going to fire people. His view is that there's so much work to be done. He's not firing, he's hiring. So the idea that civil servants or people who are garbage collectors are going to be fired is nonsense. He needs more people to build and clean Legos, not less. And he's actually going to do better for them. What he's going to do is use his policies to win over even APC supporters. So I would predict within one to two years, APC and other parties may not exist because they've all been converted to the Labour Party because they've now been excited and seen what the dynamic government actually looks like. A governor with an evangelism spirit. To convert people. Well, I'd like to thank you for coming on this show. I wish we had more time, but this is much we can take. But just for the grace of the period, just say something to the Labour Party fans. Not even Labour Party fans. Legosians, yes. Thank you very much for this opportunity. What I'd like to appeal to Legosians to understand is, firstly, let me start with even those who feel disheartened about the results of last election. This election is more important than that election. This is an election that is closest to you and affects you daily. You really need to hold this to heart and come out, in fact, with twice as much passion. Because from this foundation, is when you can now fight for the larger mandate that we thought we got cheated out of. And why I say this is, can you imagine a free and fair election under a bulletin and bulletin administration in the future? That's probably going to be gone to the... I mean, that we won't see. So this is where we need to hold the fort and begin to push back because we don't want to get to that future without this foundation to stand on. And Legos, I think, is where the battle starts from. And speaking to obedience, once we take Legos, we will take Rivers and then we'll take Delta and then we'll take Kano and Kaduna. And from that, we'll retire the old politicians and the old guys. Now, to APC supporters, this is what I have to ask you, particularly those in places like Legos Island and Alimasha. You've been loyal to the APC for 24 years, but I believe in Legos Island. I've been to this community. They have not justified that loyalty and it's time to have a rethink. And to those who they recruit as thugs, what I would ask you is, it's time to turn, flip the switch on them, take their money, but on that one day, vote for yourself and don't do their bidding and have a better future for yourself and not just be tool to be used for thuggery. Mr. Devanjo, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for having me. Good luck to your party and good luck to Legosians because the outcome of the election will determine the life that we'll have in the future. And I'm hoping that the best man will win. And I pray of us to visit JRV's website and look at that manifesto. It's something to really get excited about. Okay. All right. Well, we'll take a short break and when we return, we'll be joined by our next guest who will be talking about what is happening in Abuja. We will go on this break now, like I said, and when we return, we'll be discussing the PDP protests to INEC headquarters. Stay with us.