Lagos Candidates Pitch Themselves as Your Next Boss

Four men who want to run Lagos State sat under studio lights on Sunday, 8 November, and told millions of people how they'd manage their lives. The Nigeria Debate Consortium organised the live broadcast, moderated by Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television and Nifemi Oguntoye of TVC News. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the ADC, Obafemi Hamzat of the ruling APC, Funso Doherty of the NDC and Adedeji Doherty of the PDP took the stage. The election is 6 February 2027, about three months away.

Who Has the Power

Hamzat is the incumbent deputy governor, and he called the whole thing a job interview with Lagosians as his employers. Worth sitting with that image. He said he was commissioner for science and technology under then-Governor Bola Tinubu and was retained by Tinubu's successor, Babatunde Fashola. The chain of succession runs one way: from patron to protégé, from one office to the next. Funso Doherty said it was time to change the political hegemony that has governed the state for the past 27 years. Twenty-seven years, since 1999, and the same machine still wants another term.

Hamzat's plan rests on seven pillars forming the acronym PROMISE. He listed the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge as an achievement and promised to complete the metro rail, provide 4,000 CNG-powered BRT buses and introduce electric ferries.

Who Gets Crushed

The Lagos State Government estimates a housing deficit of 3.3 million. That's not a statistic, it's 3.3 million households squeezed by landlords and a state that's let the gap grow. Rhodes-Vivour pointed to what happens to the poorest when promises meet bulldozers. He said Hamzat had promised Makoko residents development in 2023 and then demolished their homes.

Hamzat's answer on flooding? He blamed increased rainfall and climate change, and said an environmental impact assessment was done during his tenure as commissioner. Funso Doherty claimed no such assessment was done on the coastal road, and said the state refused to modernise transportation because of vested interests. Adedeji Doherty went further in surrender: he said little could be done about flooding, blaming global climate change.

Rhodes-Vivour criticised the metro rail, ongoing for more than 20 years, for being built on the state's balance sheet instead of through private investment. He alleged corruption and avoidance of transparency. Adedeji Doherty added that N20 billion goes to servicing debt, and that the state has over 160 ministries and agencies. That's a lot of desks, a lot of salaries, a lot of gatekeepers between people and the things they need.

The Promise Machine

The numbers flew. Rhodes-Vivour promised 100,000 housing units within four years, funded by a luxury tax whose nature he didn't detail. Funso Doherty promised 150,000 units in the first four years, plus truly free education and one affordable meal for children in schools. Premium Times noted he did not explain how he would fund the school meal and free primary healthcare. Adedeji Doherty said he would not build 150,000 housing units at all, and proposed instead that the state rent houses from landlords and sublet them. The state as middleman between landlord and tenant. Imagine that.

Rhodes-Vivour also promised a law requiring landlords to give tenants at least six months' notice before rent increases, pegging the percentage of increase. Funso Doherty offered an ombudsman to deal with sharp practices and arbitrary rent increases. Both solutions ask tenants to wait for a government office to protect them from the people who hold the keys. Rhodes-Vivour pledged to make the state safer by removing street urchins, a phrase for children and adults with nowhere to go, to be handled by those in charge.

Then came the grading. Premium Times handed out scores: Rhodes-Vivour 8/10, Hamzat 7/10, Funso Doherty 7/10, Adedeji Doherty 3/10. A press outlet marking would-be rulers like schoolboys sitting an exam, while the people who live with the floods, the rents and the demolitions get no mark sheet at all.

On Sunday, everyone competed to be the one holding the power. Nobody onstage proposed that Makoko's residents, or the tenants facing rent hikes, decide for themselves.