Rhodes-Vivour Recounts Gunmen Attack Days Before Gubernatorial Election

The Labour party (LP) governorship candidate in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has confirmed reports of gunmen attack during his campaign in the Epe area of the state.

Naija News earlier reported that a former Commissioner under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration, Hon. Olawale Oluwo, narrowly escaped unhurt when some unidentified hoodlums suspected to be political thugs reportedly shot at him during the campaign walk of the LP on Saturday, March 11, 2023.

Oluwo was the candidate of the Boot Party for the March 18th Governorship election but recently shelved his ambition and collapsed his structure for the Labour Party.

In an interview with Arise TV on Sunday, Gbadebo said he was in the community to campaign when some men who were wearing a political party’s campaign shirts suspected to be thugs of the All Progressives Congress (APC) obstructed their movement.

He said the timely intervention of the police and the DSS who were on his train helped to prevent the incident from escalating.

The LP candidate noted that there have been lots of threats and assassination attempts on his life in recent times.

He said: “There have been lots of threats. We have gotten a lot of intel about potential assassination attempts on my life. Yes it happened in Epe. We had Honorable Wale Oluwo with us and we also hand Honorable Najid of the PDP working with us and they were also shot at in Epe yesterday.

“There was a lot of anger amongst the APC youths that were there because these people were wearing greater rising T-shirts so we are not speculating, they were APC.

“The idea is we need to move away from this agberocracy that Lagos state has come to be defined as where it is about violence and vitriol and anger and suppression and intimidation. If you do your job, you shouldn’t have to intimidate people

“As our convoy was moving, a lot of young men came out and tried to block the road and we couldn’t go in. We had a lot of force with us in terms of the police and it was very important that we did not show any force because what will then happen as they are trying to propangadize a Gbadebo to a Chinedu, they will now say I came in there and I tried to take over Epe and I am using guns.

We had the police go in there and try to allay everything. The DSS was also very helpful in trying to neutralize the situation. They did shoot at us and they did try to intimidate us”