The Citizenship Question Returns

THE CITIZENSHIP QUESTION RETURNS

Rhodes-Vivour, Hamzat and the battle for Lagos in 2027

Exclusive to Ekocity | Politics & Governance Desk

The ghosts of the 2023 Lagos governorship election have begun to walk again. This time, they have arrived early. On Tuesday, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the African Democratic Congress candidate for Lagos in 2027, revived one of the most contentious arguments from his previous legal battle against Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat.

His target is now the man who has emerged as the APC’s candidate to succeed Sanwo-Olu. Rhodes-Vivour questioned Hamzat’s eligibility over an alleged United States oath of allegiance, arguing during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily that a Nigerian seeking the governorship should not simultaneously owe allegiance to another country. (Vanguard News)

It is a politically potent argument. But it is not a legally unresolved one.

THE ISSUE HAS BEEN TO COURT BEFORE

The allegation was central to Rhodes-Vivour’s 2023 election petition. An immigration lawyer, Olubusayo Fasidi, testified before the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal about Hamzat’s alleged U.S. naturalisation process. But the courts ultimately rejected Rhodes-Vivour’s challenge. In January 2024, the Supreme Court affirmed Sanwo-Olu’s election, dismissing Rhodes-Vivour’s appeal.

The apex court held, in substance, that Hamzat’s acquisition of another citizenship did not by itself extinguish his Nigerian citizenship because he was a Nigerian citizen by birth. The court also found that there was no sufficient proof that Hamzat had renounced his Nigerian citizenship. (ThisDayLive)

That distinction is critical. Rhodes-Vivour is therefore not introducing an entirely new legal question. He is reopening a question that has already passed through Nigeria’s electoral courts — this time with Hamzat himself standing at the centre of the 2027 race. And Lagos politics rarely wastes an opportunity like that.

FROM COURTROOM TO CAMPAIGN

The political calculation is obvious. Hamzat enters 2027 with the machinery of the All Progressives Congress, the backing of President Bola Tinubu and the institutional advantage of having served as deputy governor for eight years. Rhodes-Vivour enters with something different: recognition. In 2023, he polled 312,329 votes, finishing second behind Sanwo-Olu’s 762,134. (My Blog – My WordPress Blog)

That result transformed him from a relatively new political figure into the most recognisable opposition challenger in Lagos. But 2027 presents a different landscape. Peter Obi, whose presidential campaign helped generate the enormous political energy surrounding the Labour Party in 2023, is no longer running alongside Rhodes-Vivour. Obi has moved to the Nigeria Democratic Congress, while Rhodes-Vivour remains with the ADC.

The question is whether Rhodes-Vivour can turn what was partly a national movement in 2023 into an independently rooted Lagos political coalition in 2027. He believes he can. In July, he argued that the “Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of 2023” is not the same politician in 2026, saying he has spent the intervening years building grassroots structures across Lagos. He has also described the ADC opposition coalition as deliberately designed to challenge the APC’s dominance. (Channels Television)

He has gone further, saying the coalition is being built not merely to win votes but to protect those votes from intimidation and manipulation. (Channels Television) That is a significant shift in strategy.

CAN ADC REALLY CHALLENGE APC IN LAGOS?

This is perhaps the bigger question. For nearly three decades, the APC political family has dominated Lagos politics.

But the 2023 election demonstrated that the dominance is not absolute. Rhodes-Vivour’s 312,329 votes were evidence that an opposition candidate can assemble a formidable constituency in Lagos when political dissatisfaction, youth mobilisation and a strong campaign converge. The challenge for the ADC is reproduction. Can it attract voters beyond the demographic that propelled the Labour Party in 2023? Can it build credible ward-by-ward machinery?

Can it persuade voters in Lagos’ diverse political communities from Ikorodu to Alimosho, Agege to Eti-Osa that it is more than an opposition vehicle? And can Rhodes-Vivour compete against the APC’s enormous organisational infrastructure?

These questions may matter more than social-media popularity. The ADC’s opportunity lies in consolidation. If multiple opposition parties divide the anti-APC vote, the ruling party’s structural advantage remains formidable. If the opposition can build a genuine coalition around one credible Lagos-wide platform, the mathematics changes. Rhodes-Vivour himself has said that Lagos requires a broad coalition cutting across generations, ethnic groups and political experiences. (Channels Television)

TINAPA: THE PROJECT THAT STILL DIVIDES CROSS RIVER

Duke, Imoke and the price of political vision Exclusive to Ekocity | Politics, Economy & Governance Desk There are infrastructure projects that disappear when governments change. Then there are projects that become part of a state’s political memory. Tinapa is both. Nearly two decades after its inauguration, the sprawling business and leisure resort outside Calabar remains one of Nigeria’s most ambitious development experiments — and one of its most enduring political arguments. Now, the argument has returned.

Former Cross River Governor Liyel Imoke, who succeeded Donald Duke in 2007, has revisited the controversy in an interview with ARISE News, arguing that Tinapa was fundamentally flawed from conception because the commercial ecosystem required to make it work was never established. (Arise News)

His criticism is unusually specific. Imoke argues that Tinapa was conceived as a major free-trade shopping destination without first securing the conditions that would make such a destination commercially viable: reliable power, adequate transport infrastructure, functioning port facilities, appropriate Free Trade Zone regulations, tax incentives and anchor tenants. On the day Tinapa was commissioned, he said, there was no adequate power supply. His administration subsequently installed an independent power plant to keep the complex functioning. (Arise News)

The numbers make the ambition clearer. Tinapa was developed on roughly 265 hectares, with a shopping complex, hotel, water park, artificial lake, entertainment facilities and other commercial infrastructure. The project reportedly consumed more than $350 million in its initial development. (Premium Times)

Duke’s original proposition was audacious: use tourism, retail and commerce to transform Cross River’s economy and position Calabar as a regional destination. The problem was not necessarily the dream. It was the ecosystem surrounding the dream. Imoke’s argument is that Cross River was expected to operate a project whose success depended on infrastructure and regulatory decisions largely outside the state’s control. He pointed specifically to Calabar’s airport capacity, the absence of a sufficiently developed seaport, access roads and the unresolved regulatory environment surrounding the Free Trade Zone. He also questioned the commercial mathematics behind expectations of millions of visitors to Calabar. (Arise News)

His conclusion is devastatingly simple: beautiful buildings cannot create an economy by themselves.

THE DEBT QUESTION

The other side of the Tinapa story is its financial burden. Imoke says he inherited substantial debts and contingent liabilities when he assumed office. He said debt servicing associated with Tinapa consumed enormous resources and that Cross River could not simply continue financing the project while also meeting obligations in healthcare, education, rural infrastructure and workers’ salaries. (NewsTimes)

Yet Imoke rejects the accusation that he abandoned Tinapa. He says his administration continued operating the resort, maintained the cable car for years, introduced additional uses for the facility and sought ways to keep the complex economically relevant. More broadly, he argues that he continued Duke’s tourism agenda, pointing to the Calabar Carnival, urban renewal, street lighting and the Obudu Ranch as examples of projects he inherited and expanded rather than discarded. (Arise News)

That point is important. The Tinapa debate has often been presented as Duke the visionary versus Imoke the administrator. The reality is more complicated.