Nigeria, Dec. 28 -- The Cultural Rebirth of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour

By any measure, the 2023 Lagos State governorship election was not just a contest of policies. It was a referendum on identity. Few candidates have ever been scrutinised as intensely, or caricatured as deliberately, as Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV). Branded by opponents as "not Lagosian enough," portrayed as culturally distant, and falsely accused of disparaging his Yoruba heritage, he became the target of a carefully constructed propaganda campaign. The claims were loud, repetitive, and largely untrue. But in politics, repetition often substitutes for evidence, and in 2023, the damage stuck.

What followed over the next 20 months, however, is one of the most remarkable pers...