By Abiola Olawale
The 2023 governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, has alleged that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State spent over N1 billion on helicopter charter service in one month alone.
According to the Lagos-born politician, Sanwo-Olu allegedly spent N1,039,875,000 on helicopter charter service in April 2022. He also accused the governor of spending another N512,000,000 on the same service in July and August 2023.
Rhodes-Vivour made these accusations on his official X handle. He wondered why the state would allegedly allocate nearly N2bn in three months for helicopter charter services for the governor while some areas in the state still lack access to clean water.
He tweeted: “In April 2022 alone, the Lagos state government spent N1,039,875,000 on helicopter charter service for Mr. Governor’s regular traveling. In July and August 2023, it spent N512,000,000 on the same helicopters,”
“Should Lagos be spending close to N2 billion in just three months transporting the governor in a private helicopter when most parts of his primary constituency in Lagos Island do not have portable water running from their taps?” he queried.
Rhodes-Vivour, putting things in context also said that N1.2bn could pay 1,000 teachers N100,000 monthly for a year.
He continued: “A Rhodes-Vivour government will use drones as opposed to helicopters for project supervision. This will save the state funds that will be put toward human capital development.
“E.g. With N1.2 billion, we can pay 1,000 teachers N100,000/month for a year. This will bring us closer to our goal of achieving the best public primary and secondary school education system in the country.
“A Rhodes-Vivour government will not pay for officials to travel on private Jets. Any official that intends to fly private will pay privately,” Rhodes-Vivour added.
It would be recalled that Rhodes-Vivour contested in the last governorship election of Lagos. After the completion of the voting and counting process of the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Sanwo-Olu as the winner.
Sanwo-Olu polled 762,134 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 312,329 votes.
Abdulazeez Adediran of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came a distant third with 62,449 votes.
