Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the African Democratic Congress governorship candidate in Lagos State, says he has learnt Yoruba and is now able to campaign in the language ahead of the 2027 governorship election.
Rhodes-Vivour disclosed this during an interview on Thursday, September 17, 2026, while discussing the role of language, culture and identity in Lagos politics.
The former Labour Party governorship candidate said he had engaged a Yoruba teacher to improve his command of the language following the controversy that surrounded his Yoruba fluency during the 2023 Lagos governorship election.
According to him, although language and culture are important in connecting with residents, his political focus extends beyond ethnicity and communication in Yoruba.
“Culture and language is very, very important, and I’ve gotten a Yoruba teacher, and I’ve learned Yoruba, and I can campaign in Yoruba, and that is wonderful,” Rhodes-Vivour said during the interview.
His comments were reported by several Nigerian news organisations following the interview.
Rhodes-Vivour Responds In Yoruba
The ADC candidate also demonstrated his improved Yoruba-speaking ability during the television interview.
After one of the presenters indicated that he would greet Rhodes-Vivour in Yoruba and subsequently translate the greeting, the politician responded in Yoruba.
Rhodes-Vivour said, “Mo ki gbogbo yin,” which translates to “I greet all of you.”
The brief exchange came amid renewed attention to his efforts to improve his fluency in the language, an issue that featured prominently during his 2023 campaign for the Lagos governorship.
Rhodes-Vivour said he had taken deliberate steps to learn Yoruba because he considers language and culture important aspects of engaging with Lagos residents.
However, he maintained that the challenges confronting Lagos residents go beyond ethnic or linguistic differences.
Flooding, Housing, Traffic Top Concerns
During the interview, Rhodes-Vivour identified flooding, housing and traffic congestion among the major problems facing Lagos residents.
He said these challenges affect people across ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and should therefore remain central to discussions about the future of the State.
“My passionate interest is to ensure that we have a Lagos that no longer stinks,” he said.
Explaining the statement, he argued that residents collectively experience the consequences of poor infrastructure and urban challenges, irrespective of their background.
“All of us are going to, when you translate it, all of us are going to hear the smell, right? Everybody is going to experience the failure, is experiencing the failure of our flooding, of our housing crisis, of the traffic, of the loss of dignity of Lagosians. And that connects all of us,” he said.
The comments place the issues of flooding, accommodation and transportation alongside language and cultural identity as themes likely to feature in discussions surrounding the 2027 Lagos governorship race.
Yoruba Controversy During 2023 Campaign
Rhodes-Vivour’s latest comments also revisit an issue that generated considerable attention during the 2023 Lagos governorship election.
During that campaign, his Yoruba and Igbo family background and his level of fluency in Yoruba became subjects of public debate.
In a March 2023 interview, Rhodes-Vivour acknowledged that he understood and could speak Yoruba but said he was not fluent.
He explained at the time that his upbringing and education, including periods spent outside Nigeria, had affected his fluency. His comments about not “thinking in Yoruba” subsequently became part of the political debate surrounding his candidacy. Contemporary reporting and commentary documented the controversy and his explanation of his linguistic background.
Rhodes-Vivour later said he had engaged a Yoruba teacher to improve his proficiency. His latest disclosure indicates that he now considers himself sufficiently proficient to use the language while campaigning.
The issue has also been discussed in the context of his family background. Rhodes-Vivour’s father, Olawale Rhodes-Vivour, is Yoruba, while his mother is Igbo.
From Labour Party To ADC
Rhodes-Vivour contested the 2023 Lagos governorship election on the platform of the Labour Party.
The election, held on March 18, 2023, was won by the incumbent, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress.
According to the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, Sanwo-Olu secured 762,134 votes, while Rhodes-Vivour polled 312,329 votes to finish second. PDP candidate, Abdul-Azeez Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, received 62,449 votes and finished third.
Rhodes-Vivour subsequently challenged the election result in court. The legal challenge eventually reached the Supreme Court, which in January 2024 dismissed the appeal challenging Sanwo-Olu’s election.
Since the 2023 election, Rhodes-Vivour has moved from the Labour Party to the African Democratic Congress, where he is now seeking the Party’s platform for the 2027 Lagos governorship race.
His latest comments therefore come as the political conversation around the next Lagos governorship election begins to take shape.
Language And Lagos Politics
For Rhodes-Vivour, the renewed focus on Yoruba appears to be linked to his experience during the 2023 campaign, when his ability to speak the language became a recurring subject of discussion.
His latest position is that he has addressed that particular concern by taking lessons and developing his proficiency.
At the same time, he has sought to shift the emphasis towards issues he says affect Lagos residents collectively, including flooding, housing and traffic.
As the 2027 election approaches, his ability to communicate in Yoruba is now likely to form part of the broader public discussion about his campaign, alongside his proposed approach to the State’s infrastructure, housing, transportation and other challenges.
For now, Rhodes-Vivour says he is prepared to take his message to Lagos voters in Yoruba, while insisting that the issues confronting residents remain more important than language or ethnic identity.