Barely 48 hours to governorship and other elections in Lagos and across the country, crises have begun rocking the Lagos chapter of Labour Party (LP) and dividing members with the top leader of the party planning to withdraw support for their gubernatorial candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, on suspicious of not been loyal and refusing to carry along party faithful with the campaign.
As gathered, the aggrieved leaders learnt to include Moshood Salvador, who contested against Rhodes-Vivour during the party’s gubernatorial primary elections in Lagos, were said to have concluded plans to let the governorship candidate running his campaign all alone since he has decided to run the show alongside his family.
Their grievance, as learnt, has continued tiring apart the state chapter of the party behind closed doors, even as they pretended to be united and hide their bitterness until the outburst of those who could no longer take the sidelines that was allegedly initiated by Rhodes-Vivour.
The crisis rocking the chapter of the party, The Guild gathered, was responsible for the defection of its Lagos Central Senatorial candidate, Adesunbo Onitiri, to dump their party to work for the state Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s re-election.
Sources within the party claimed that the governorship candidate had been running the state chapter of the party as a family entity after LP’s presidential election victory in Lagos when it was expected of the party and its members to come together as well as work as one entity for other elections ahead of them.
They said that the attitude of the gubernatorial candidate had been causing the party’s internal crisis that was not open to media and members of the public, and that it is sad that the leaders were deciding to pull their support at these odd hours.
According to them, both the governorship candidate and the leaders were expected to have addressed their differences before getting out of hand, just as they were optimistic that the LP’s national leadership may wade in to stop the unnecessary madness that could jeopardize efforts of all members of the party in Lagos.
One of the members that spoke to The Guild, who pleaded not to be mentioned due to the sensitivity of the matter claimed that Rhodes-Vivour was becoming arrogant after the victory of the last election.
The source noted that the media noise that the result generated has been making him become more popular and that the result of the last election in Lagos was not helping him think straight to understand that the challenges ahead could be tougher than the previous election.
She told The Guild on Wednesday night that listed numbers of leaders including Salvador, may not back down on their concluded plan to withdraw support from the governorship candidate and allow Gbadebo to lose woefully since they have nothing to lose.
The young woman who is close to the top leaders stated that the position of the leaders was not to destroy the party but to earn respect from the gubernatorial candidate who they believe was not entertaining suggestions and advice from top members of the party.
She disclosed that the aggrieved leaders were set to speak with the media on their decision to go south against the party’s governorship candidate in Lagos, not minding the consequences of their actions, even if their actions may temporarily cost them favour that LP was already garnering from indigenes of the state.
The LP member said: “The senior members of the party were also not satisfied with the way and manner the gubernatorial primary that produced Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour played out and the National Working Committee (NWC) was yet to address their grievances which led to some members heading to court.
“After they waited for many weeks without the issues resolved, they have concluded plans to engage the media and members of the public with plans to announce their preferred candidate and that candidate is not Gbadebo. They have made up their mind and very soon you will hear from them about their plans”.
Efforts to get the LP gubernatorial candidate or any member of his campaign team to speak on the issue proved abortive.
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