The room

The Fela Debates, themed “Who Are You Ré?”, was held on the first day of Felabration 2026, the annual festival in memory of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, which runs to Sunday, 18 October. The theme comes from Fela’s 1971 song “Who Are You.” The story is that Fela wrote it after a drunk patron at a Lagos nightclub tried to intimidate him by asking, “Who are you?” Fela mocked him with “Who are you ré?”, and the man’s ego was deflated. “Who Are You” is the theme of the whole festival. The debate was streamed live on the Felabration YouTube channel.

The moderator, Kayode Okikiolu, who introduced himself as a supervising anchor at Channels Television (currently “at large”), said the debates were to be about “dialogue” and “awakening,” and set house rules: 60-second questions, one question per person, no personal attacks, applause only at the start and end of a speech.

Three candidates took the stage, invited in party-alphabetical order:

• Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, African Democratic Congress (ADC)
• Funso Doherty, NDC, whose running mate, Tolani Animashaun, was in the audience
• Adedeji Doherty, People’s Democratic Party (PDP)

The two Dohertys are different people.

Opening remarks came from Yemi Adamolekun, the pioneer executive director of Enough is Enough. The moderator introduced her as its former executive director. Femi Falana SAN spoke from the floor at the moderator’s invitation. Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, who introduced herself as head of the Ransome-Kuti family, also spoke from the floor, as did members of the audience.

The moderator said a fact-checker was working behind the scenes, flagging “any half-truth or any misquoted data.” His assessment, midway through: “So far, all of the candidates seem to have gotten their facts and data right, bar a few contexts that were missing and perhaps some records that are not publicly available, especially some of the meetings mentioned.” That is the organisers’ view. We have not seen their check, and our own findings, below, differ on some figures.

The empty chair

Early on, the moderator said: “Seeing that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, is not here at the moment, we will move on with the agenda for the day.”

Dr Hamzat is the Deputy Governor of Lagos State and the APC’s candidate. Several speakers remarked on his absence.

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour said: “It’s a very big disgrace. The current deputy governor is not here. Babajide Sanwo-Olu did the same thing in 2023. He did not appear in any debates.” He added that candidates should “come and sell yourself and your vision to the people. We don’t want selection candidates because it never works in the interest of Nigerians.”

Mr Rhodes-Vivour said Dr Hamzat was at the inaugural Seyi Tinubu Colloquium, held at Eko Hotels and Suites the same day. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu spoke at the colloquium, according to published reports. Seyi Tinubu is the son of President Bola Tinubu.

Later, on collaboration, he said: “I’m very glad that the APC is not here.”

Ms Adamolekun took up the point later. Yemi Adamolekun said: “I feel sorry, in a sense, for the current deputy governor, ’cause he has to manage him being deputy governor and him running for office. He’s currently attending Seyi Tinubu’s colloquium. No, no, no, I mean, if you look online, that’s where he is. So he has prioritised making a case for why he should be Lagos State’s governor to attend. Well, maybe he’ll make the case there, but I mean, he’ll be talking to APC people, so I don’t really understand.”

Femi Falana, speaking later, said: “Listening to the candidates, I thought everybody was going to be here. But I know some people will not come.”

Yemisi Ransome-Kuti said: “I wished Dr Hamzat had been here because there was a specific experience that I wanted him to share with the rest of you. When the road that I lived in became a gully and the efforts I had to put in to look for who’s supposed to do something about it and eventually landing with him. And after engaging with him, the road was fixed.”

We have not heard from Dr Hamzat or the APC campaign. See “Questions we are putting” below.

The opening: Yemi Adamolekun

Ms Adamolekun’s opening remarks set out what she wants anyone seeking the office to answer, under four headings: people, the environment, prosperity and consequences. The transcript begins partway through her remarks; her earlier points (she mentions street children) are not covered in it.

Transport. On the Blue Line: “The Blue Line was supposed to carry half a million people a day, I believe. It was later reduced to a quarter of a million. The average now is as if we’re carrying about 10,000 people a day. That’s a very, very huge gap. So a project can exist, but still not serve the people it was built for.” The Lagos State transport authority has reported about five million passengers in the line’s first two years, which averages roughly 7,000 a day. That average is our arithmetic.

On the Bus Rapid Transit scheme: “There was dedicated lanes, dedicated buses. But what has happened to the BRT buses? What has happened to the BRT lanes? At the time in Lagos, you would be afraid to drive on a BRT lane. Now, how about, all of us are doing it now.” She asked whether keeping the old buses, and converting them to gas or electric, “would not make transportation easier for Lagosians.”

Roads and traffic. “Why is it until a road has a crater do we decide that we want to put something in there?” She said Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue “continually boggles my mind,” because it runs through “Nigeria’s richest real estate” yet “the road is a disaster.” On the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA): “There was a time where [they were] ubiquitous… their mandate to ensure that traffic moved was a mandate that they executed. Now, they are either bouncers at a party, bodyguards sometimes. And sometimes you just see them chilling ’cause they’re tired.”

Taxes and levies. “We get taxed not just in monies that we pay legally, we get taxed as monies that we pay illegally every day.” She said someone can “wake up today and say, ‘You haven’t paid one levy or the other,’” and asked how Lagos will harmonise its state and local taxes.

Young people. “Make no mistake, if anything happens in Lagos that provides a hint of an opportunity to destroy, people will destroy.” She asked how young people, including street children, will be turned into a workforce and “productive members of society, not destructive.”

Consequences. “Do you know who I am? Please, who do you know? Who do you know that might know someone that knows someone?” And: “They built on a canal, we demolished their house, but who in the civil service was penalised for that?” She asked what a governor would do to make the civil service understand “the weight of consequences,” and added: “If a promise is missed, what is given up? And where does the public see it if you have failed to deliver?”

On how civil servants are chosen, she said: “Traditional rulers, former public officials, business associates—if those are the people who give us the names of the people we put in our civil service, if those are the people who determine how the promotion within the civil service is done, how do we expect a service that, by its very design, is designed based on meritocracy to deliver?” She named no one, and said, “Let me not name names, because I might get in trouble.”

She also told the story of Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, who as Minister of Health is said to have told his family that nobody should approach him with a contract or a referral. She said Singapore’s civil servants “earn comparatively to people in the private sector.”

Her closing questions to the candidates: “As they make the promises of what they will do in 100 days, 90 days, four years, think: and if they don’t do it, who are they willing to sacrifice for that? As in, who pays in their team? And ultimately, will they deserve a second term?”

So a project can exist, but still not serve the people it was built for.

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (ADC)

Mr Rhodes-Vivour opened by leading the audience in call-and-response lines from Fela’s songs, saying he would not “present as though I was presenting at the platform or a channels debate.”

Promises

• Education. Education “with an African ideology,” skills-focused, and “ward-level skill acquisition centres” built on data collected from each ward. Free training, free feeding and “earn while you learn.” Tools to be lent from the centres, “like the way you borrow a book from a library.” He said a poll by his Our Lagos Foundation found 46–47 per cent of respondents interested in agriculture.
• Housing. 100,000 units in four years, buying materials in bulk and sourcing labour from the local government where each project is built. Artisans would come from the skill centres. Housing to be spread beyond the island, with “water transportation” and rail links.
• Rail. All rail lines “at the same time,” in “two and a half years.” He said: “I’ve sat down with international finance corporations and I’ve said and guaranteed that I can deliver all the lines of Lagos at the same time in two and a half years. All they need from me is to ensure that there’s right of way.” Payment “should be paid from the actual service and use of that transportation,” not Lagos’s books. He also proposed bridges of four to six kilometres linking the Eastern foreshore.
• Waste. A shift from “picking and dumping” to recycling and conversion of waste to energy, with local governments sharing the value chain. The state should own its trucks. Wetland protection like that at the Lekki Conservation Centre.
• Governance. Open Lagos’s accounts in the first 10 days. Benchmark procurement against market prices. A “feedback loop” of radio call-ins and customer-service-style platforms. Road construction standards with maintenance clauses, so a contractor must fix a road that fails in the rains.
• Indigenes. Priority for Lagos indigenes in bursaries, healthcare, insurance and housing, with “a very legitimate way of tracing genealogy and registering” them.
• Land. A process for indigenes who say their land was taken, to be looked into “no matter how far back they go.”
• Culture. He said “traditional studies” could sit beside Christian and Muslim studies in schools. “I know I’m already losing votes with Christians.”
• Collaboration. He would work with whoever wins: “because these are all fine gentlemen.”

On Lagos’s record. Mr Rhodes-Vivour said: “Today, Lagos Island, there’s no water. The 10 mini waterworks that Alhaji Lateef Jakande built is not working. The big water project [name garbled in the transcript] that the government said was 80 per cent complete as far back as two years ago, still not working.” On schools, he said Jakande “was able to deliver 22,000 classrooms in four and a half years. This government has barely done 20 per cent of that.”

His claims

These are Mr Rhodes-Vivour’s claims. He named no individual in them.

• On rail: “This government has taken 16 years to do 16 kilometres of rail. But the only reason why that is is because they tied the development of Lagos to the purse strings of Lagos for one reason, and that is corruption. If they tied to the purse strings of Lagos, then they can overpower the value of the project. They can overpower the cost of the carriages… and milk from it as much as possible.” (The Blue Line opened in September 2023; the full line is 27 km.)
• On young men on the streets: “These young men that the government cannot take off the street because they need them to be able to do what they do during elections and create violence.” And: “Thuggery… is intentionally left to stay unabated because every four years, these are the young men that are used to create chaos on the day of election that come out and threaten potential opposition candidates.” He said he had to “file a petition [with] the DSS and with the police” over statements against opposition politicians.
• On drugs: “In Sereke Aruwo where we’re doing door-to-door, the youth that were in that area will tell you that drugs were introduced to those communities for free. They did not have to pay, they just had access to it.” He said youth conditions are “intentional, it is engineered.”
• On land: “The biggest thief of land in this state is the government.”
• On Lagos governance generally: “Lagos State, the Commonwealth of Lagos, is just being shared among a group of people and their friends and their cronies.” Lagos “is currently being governed solely focused on how much can be extracted.”
• On the coastal road: “We made all this noise about the Coastal Road. Somehow, the Coastal Road has gone past Eko Atlantic, has opened up that space, and now there’s a change of heart that it should be an inland road. And you find that policy, and how it is driven, is constantly at the behest of milking, taking, and enriching interest and friends, as opposed to the welfare of the Nigerian.” (On 12 October, Works Minister David Umahi told a State House briefing in Abuja that the route “cannot be changed” because it is already designed and under construction.)
• On procurement: “You will not see, in our government, the State Assembly budget $100 million now for a generator that costs $60 million on the open market, and try to buy 40 of those.” And: “If your governor is not trying to buy bulletproof cars that cost $500 million, other people, too, will look and fix up.” The figures are garbled in the transcript and are being checked against the audio.
• On demolitions: “Oworonshoki, Ilasan [as heard], Makoko, as we saw, leaving sorrow, tears, and blood.”
• On the 2023 election: “We know the election violence that happened in 2023.”
• On IGR: “This is what has bedevilled this state for the last 20 years about the IGR. It’s never about the impact of the money on the people.”
• On the diaspora: “At least 40, and I’m being conservative, 40 per cent of the African diaspora that share this skin tone, they left from the shores of Lagos.”
• On staff: “I will not allow myself to be surrounded by psychopaths.”
• On the political cycle: “Every now and then, you need to change politicians so they learn a couple of lessons and get better. In fact, even if you like APC, just do them a favour so they can get better.”

On Makoko. In his closing remarks he said: “It is very instructive that in the 2022 election, the APC put up a very big sign in front of Makoko that said, ‘A greater Lagos is rising.’ Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the current candidate [the transcript’s party label is unclear] were there, dancing and celebrating with them… Unfortunately, the people that were dancing with them did not realise that it was only them that were going to rise. They were going to be demolished.” He also said: “Babajide Sanwo-Olu, after the demolished Makoko, came out to say that the people are under high power lines, and it’s not healthy. But we have seen the plans of that place for rich people, as though rich people are somehow immune to the effect of living under high power lines.”

On evictions and the cost of living. Answering the Makoko and cost-of-living questions, Mr Rhodes-Vivour said: “The solution is not to go and break things down and drive people out of their homes… You have to make alternative provisions when you displace families. And my government will do that. And when you are talking about revitalising communities and all of that, you don’t break down a low-income settlement in order to give the land to somebody to build luxury houses upon. I mean, that is unconscionable. So you will not see that in our government.” He said informal housing is “a failure of government policy,” that government “has not prioritised affordable, low, and medium income housing,” and that “government cannot step back.” On the cost of living, he pointed to his plans to modernise transport, build housing, feed children in school, make books free and provide school transport, which “put money in the pockets of people.”

On indigeneship. This remark is sensitive. We carry it in full, with its context. Answering a question from an audience member who said Lagos indigenes are marginalised, Mr Rhodes-Vivour said: “We also have to look at how people are currently being registered as indigenous, because there’s a whole racketeering that’s constantly going on now, currently. You find so many different proclaims, ‘we Lagos indigenous,’ and they’re getting positions in the military, and you look at them, you hear their name, as you know, [word unclear], we know ourselves, and that name is not really sounding familiar. So we need to create a very legitimate way of tracing genealogy and registering that, mapping that out, and then ensuring that they get the benefits.” He named no group, and gave no examples of any case.

On healthcare and brain drain. Asked how he would stop doctors leaving, he said Nigeria “cannot compete with America or England or Canada in terms of monies that they are paying” and proposed more support staff, more preventative medicine, heavy investment in primary healthcare, and “data during diagnostics.” He said: “Too many people, they are not feeling well, they drink agbo. Their back is pained, they drink agbo. There is no licensing to it.”

Funso Doherty (NDC)

Mr Doherty opened by recalling a 1981 Fela song, “water, light, food,” and said Fela “was singing about the human condition… the things that affect people’s lives.” He quoted the constitution on “the welfare and security of the people.” He said he was 13 in 1981, grew up in Yaba, and that water then “would come” when you turned the tap.

On the NDC’s ticket: his party released a manifesto “last week,” available online, with six themes and 34 commitments, written as a checklist. “After we are inaugurated on 29 May 2027, I want you to take this document and keep it. Then when we come for re-election in the year 2030, for the 2031 election, bring it out. Use this report card.”

Promises

• Health and education. Education “truly free, not nominally free,” including books and exam fees, up to senior secondary level. One nutritious meal for every public school pupil on school days. Transport for pupils in uniform. At least 40 technical and vocational schools, with a technical and vocational track in the last three years of secondary school. Free maternal and child healthcare, “inclusive of medicines,” for children up to 16.
• Housing. 150,000 homes in four years, about 30,000 in the first year. “Priority housing development zones” in Ikorodu, Ibeju-Lekki and Badagry. About 20 per cent of the Lekki Free Zone redesignated for affordable housing. A secondary mortgage institution.
• Transport. Government to invest in buses: “this idea that government hands off to private sector the public transportation system is a non-starter from the beginning.” The Red and Blue lines to be linked with a single fare.
• Jobs. A focus on small businesses.
• Accountability. The code of conduct for public officers enforced “vigorously”; prosecution of criminal behaviour so “you will see government officials in the courts”; a review of civil service pay.
• Roads. The Lagos State Roadworks Corporation to be strengthened and decentralised to senatorial zones and local governments for routine maintenance.
• Local governments. Resources to go to local governments, because “capacity will follow the resources.” On the state electoral commission: “if it can’t work, if it’s under control of a government that is captured, then let the federal entity control the election.”
• Women. He said his running mate, Tolani Animashaun, “brings a diversity to our ticket.”
• Indigenes. On the indigenes’ question, he said Lagos “has always been a city that welcomes,” that indigenes’ “identities must not be lost in that process,” and that “one important thing that you must do as an indigene is to elect an indigene as your governor.”
• Collaboration. “I’m ready to collaborate with anybody who has Lagos as their agenda.”

Statements of fact and our checks

His claims

These are Mr Doherty’s claims. He named no individual in them.

• On agberos. “It’s the same kind of structure you find in organised rackets, organised crime networks across the world. They are a pyramidal structure. There are a lot of people at the bottom who are the runners… There’s a lot of money that’s flowing through the system, but that money flows all the way to the top. And there are some powerful people at the top who are basically the repository of that money.” He said “this network now has developed political power because this network is now part of the political power structure of Lagos State. And therefore there is no political will to solve that problem.” He added: “If you want to solve this problem, you have to remove APC from Lagos State. That is the first step.” (See also the Falana claim below.)
• On the civil service. “You can’t pay a permanent secretary the same salary that somebody who has spent two years in a bank is earning. Then give him all this power, and expect it not to be misused. It will be. The whole thing is just like a boju-boju kind of thing… they are paying their peanuts with the idea that, well, you are on the seat. So you use the seat to make money.”
• On contracts. “It’s not everything you have to go and award contract for, or big contract, unless you have an interest in awarding that contract.”
• On experience. “You need to elect somebody who has occupied those positions, who has been entrusted with hundreds of billions, and who has proven himself… The governorship of Lagos is not the place to experience hundreds of billions of naira for the first time.” He did not name a rival.
• On the Blue Line: “That’s why people are not using it.”

Other remarks. He told a story of growing a beard as a company chief executive, and watching colleagues follow, to argue that “the chief executive has great capacity to influence what’s going on, even informally.” He said: “even when I was not in government, I was pushing [the] APC [government]. You all know the letters I wrote. I’ve contributed to the government of this state in the last four years without being in the governor’s seat.” The transcript is ambiguous on this line, and we are checking it against the audio. He said he is 58, was born and raised in Lagos, “from a prominent Lagos family,” and has spent all but five years of his career in the city. He said “Fela’s song of 1981” asked whether people have water and power.

To an audience member who suggested a two-point agenda: “That would be nice if you are running maybe a nursery school… this is Lagos State. There is no room for a two-point agenda.”

Adedeji Doherty (PDP)

Mr Doherty asked the room to stand for a minute’s silence for Fela, thanked the organisers and acknowledged Mr Falana, Femi Kuti and Ms Adamolekun by name. He said he had entered politics in 1998, joined the PDP, “and I’ve been there ever since,” and that “it has taken me 20-something years to even get a ticket of a political party.” He said he first ran for governor at 38 and is now 64. He held up a magazine from 2005, said his manifesto from then “is still the same thing,” and that “the problems we had then are still the problems we have today.” He spoke of two Fela songs, “Beast of No Nation” and “Suffering and Smiling,” and the line about “49 sitting, 99 standing.”

Promises

• Health. A deal with “all the big pharmaceutical manufacturers”: “I can bring in equity. I know you have big loans. I can wipe off some for you. I can make you rebound back.” In return they would open dispensaries across the state, and he would issue a card. “Whether you’re a driver, a mechanic, a carpenter… you register with Lagos State with a card and that card makes you pay the minimal tax… The state gives you that card. You go to the dispensary and you buy your drugs at minimal cost.”
• Power. “State of emergency” on the electricity distribution companies: “You are holding down the wealth of the state.” The state would bring in a consultant, take equity, and “pump” money in, on condition that “you need to bring the cost down.”
• Creatives. Soft loans; “government and private partnership” studios; international affiliations; and an association of established musicians, “like Femi,” to advise government.
• Security. CCTV tied to the state’s solar street lights, “in neighbourhoods and in various markets.”
• Local governments. The PDP has “adopted 100 LCDAs and 20 LGAs. So we have 120 as we speak right now.” He said “by 2035, Lagos State is going to be moving from 24, 25 million population to close to about 30 million.”
• Agberos. “We’re going to start from the bottom”: vocational training such as “teaching them how to repair computers, teaching them how to repair ACs,” so that being an agbero is “a last resort.” He called the agbero trade “run like a mafia.”
• The NURTW. The National Union of Road Transport Workers “has to be reconstituted, reconstructed, and their powers need to be reduced. As far as them going into politics or being used as politicians, that is something that we will have to treat headlong.”
• Evictions. “Government should have a human face… you should make available where they’re going to move to before you even evacuate them or break it down.” He said “what happened in Agege just lately, with the Hausa community there,” saw people given “two days’ notice, one day’s notice.”
• Women. He said his deputy governor would be a woman and an industrialist, and that the PDP’s governorship form “is almost free.”
• Youth and drugs. He said Lagos “is the highest employer of youths and people. And it shouldn’t be so. It should be the private sector.” And: “We have a very high rate of drug addicts in Lagos State today. They don’t make it public.”
• Collaboration. He did not directly answer.
• Civil servants. “The main thing is that we are here for doctors, for nurses, for teachers, and for civil servants. Let us make them happy.”

Statements of fact and our checks

His claims

• On the kidnapping of two children. “In Lagos State today, you know, maybe they have not made it public yet, but there’s a lot of kidnapping going on. Just about two weeks ago, two children have been kidnapped around the Adeniji Jones area, and they haven’t even found them up till now.” We are hoping the police authorities would enlighten us further on this. (See “Questions we are putting.”)
• On LASIEC. “In the area of LASEC… when you are paying LASEC, you are paying APC, so why are you paying the people that you are contesting against?… They use our money to fight us at the polling units, and there was nothing she could do about it. It is in the Constitution.” He said he and “Justice Phillips” (as heard) “got into that row for a long time” over the payments for forms. (Mr Falana made a related legal claim; see below.)
• On the state of the federation. He said that if Lagos gets it wrong, “Nigeria goes wrong.” He referred to “the policies that this gentleman will bring out on us,” without saying whom he meant.

Personal. “About 11 years ago, I owed banks 3.8 billion. I had to work myself out of that. And at the end of the day, after about seven years of restructuring my various companies, I was able to get out of that debt.” He said, “I know what debt can do to you.”

Femi Falana SAN, from the floor

What Fela stood for was accountable government, for us to ask questions from people in power.

The moderator asked the audience’s permission for Mr Falana to speak. “It’s a democracy, so we have your support,” came the reply. He spoke “by way of information.”

On agberos. “The funds collected by the Agbero system is about 120 billion naira a year. So if you are going to address that problem, you must know the figures and find out where the money goes to.” Our check: The figure matches a 2021 estimate of about ₦123.7 billion a year by the ICIR (reported by BusinessDay, 22 July 2021). It is an estimate, and we have not found a current one.

On local government commissions. To the PDP candidate: “There are decisions of the court that it’s illegal for local government commissions to collect money from candidates. It’s not allowed.” He named no decisions.

On accountability. “What Fela stood for was accountable government, for us to ask questions from people in power.” He proposed regular consultations after the election “so that we can all challenge whoever is [in power] among you.”

On money from Abuja. He said Lagos had received about ₦72 billion in a recent period, and that local governments in Lagos had collected “between January and June this year, about 122 billion.” The transcript is garbled and the periods are unclear. He said: “These figures, we can circulate… so that people know where we have problems. But you know, these guys in Alausa and Abuja tell us, you know, there’s no money.” He told the room to ask for the figures: “I want to know how much has come to Lagos in the last… that’s what they call the Freedom of Information Act now. Let’s take advantage of the laws that are here. And it’s because we are not asking questions that anybody does what he likes in Lagos and the country.”

On the coastal road. “The road, coastal road, has now become land road. I’m sure you’re aware. What I’m saying is that after August, they now say they are going from Edo to go by land because they can’t fund it. Again, we must now ask questions. What are the 15 trillion naira earmarked for that road? And that is the only way we can get these people to be accountable.” On 12 October, Works Minister David Umahi told a State House briefing in Abuja that the project “remains intact,” and that the route cannot be changed because it is already designed and under construction. The only reroute we have found was in June 2024, around an MTN subsea cable.

On election violence. “Going by what happened during the last election, violence will be introduced. Many people will not be allowed to vote unless you guys are ready to form, regardless of your political parties, to form a group that will defend the vote of everybody in Lagos. We didn’t fight for this rickety democracy that somebody will look at your face and say, ‘You should not vote in this country.’” He warned that some would try to stop people voting “because you don’t look like a Yoruba man, therefore you must not vote in Lagos, in Nigeria. That must not be allowed.” His request: “after this gathering, those of you out there and your colleagues must form a group to monitor each voting unit. Your agents must work together, and deal with the agents of those who will not allow us to vote.”

From the floor

Audience members were given 60 seconds each.

Indigene marginalisation. A questioner who gave his name as Olusi Adeola and said he is an indigene of Lagos asked: “Access to public healthcare, education, and other government opportunities is based on APC membership cards, or knowing an honourable.” He asked what the candidates would do for indigenes and about “this hijacking of our ancestral lands.” (Candidates’ answers are above.)

Creatives. Olufemi Martins, A&R director of the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria, said 90 per cent of creatives are underfunded and asked the PDP candidate what funds he would create, whether he would set up a standalone ministry, and how he would ensure the money does not “end up like other political grants for friends only.” Mr Adedeji Doherty’s answers are above; he did not say whether he would create a standalone ministry.

Agberos and local governments. Olushile Akinyemi asked about uniformed and non-uniformed agberos, the 20 recognised local governments and the 57 that Lagos recognises, and the state electoral commission.

Culture. A priest from Ile-Ife, Chief Babarola Iludoyin, said the candidates “never talk about culture.” The moderator said it was “not a question directed at anybody.”

Law and order. Leke Akirowo, who said he is an APC member but his contribution is not partisan, asked what the candidates would do about law and order, saying that “a Lagos governor who does not build a single road, who doesn’t build a single hospital or bridge, if he pays enough attention on law and order, he will make more impact.”

Fela University. An artist and cultural researcher who gave his name as Afereka asked the candidates for help establishing a “Fela University.” The moderator reminded them at the close: “Candidates, you owe Mr Afereka your answers about the Fela University.” The candidates did not answer it on the day.

Citizen engagement. Yemisi Ransome-Kuti asked how local governments would be empowered to maintain roads and manage waste, and how citizens would be involved in “planning, feedback and implementation.” She said Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti (the name is garbled in the transcript), “before he died, told me that the one regret he had when he was setting up these primary healthcare centres is to empower the citizens of the area to be part of the process.” Her last question was to the audience: “Who are we, Ré? …Are we the principled people, the disciplined people, the people that are able to have leaders come from us?”

Civil service. A questioner, Yomi Idowu, who said he is a candidate for the ADC, asked how the candidates would remove corruption from the civil service: “No politicians can steal money without the civil servant.”

Collaboration. A questioner asked the candidates to work with the winner. Another, Ezola Wawukunseye, said: “There is a need for the three of you to have a sit-down to collaborate against the APC. Who has the best electoral chance? Who has the biggest structure? Who has run before and has pulled the numbers?” The questioner also urged the candidates to distinguish “Omo-oniles and agberos,” said that “any plan you have for agberos, trust me, they don’t want to work. They already have a job, which is to collect money at the bus parks,” and asked what the plan is for low-income areas: “It’s only for elites.”

Brain drain. Toyin Collins asked how the candidates would keep doctors and other professionals in the country. In framing the question, he said Dr Hamzat “was proudly saying in the last town hall… that we have brilliant youths that left and are prospering out of this country.” We have not heard from Dr Hamzat.

Young leaders. Emmanuel Salami said that he hoped the candidates would “unite and allow the young banana in the house to groom out something special.”

Women. A woman asked what the candidates would do for women in politics, citing a figure of “6.7” for women’s participation in Lagos politics (the unit is not clear in the transcript).

The two-point agenda. Oluwasegun Adekayero asked the NDC candidate why he does not campaign on “one or two points.”

Cost of living. Olanrewaju Akoyemi asked the NDC and ADC candidates what specific policies they would implement in 12 months to reduce the cost of living, what they would cost, and “if you fail to meet those targets, how should the people hold you accountable?”

Makoko. The last question came from Kunu Poh, who said he works with the Justice and Empowerment Initiative (JEI Nigeria) and is “one of the pioneers” of the Nigerian Slum and Informal Settlement Federation. He said his community, Otodo-Gbame, “was demolished in 2016 to 2017 under the leadership of APC government,” that families moved to Makoko, and that “this time around 2025, so 2026 January, we face another forced eviction.” He said: “And all of this eviction, forced eviction, happened in violation of court’s order and court’s rulings.” He asked what the candidates would do about the community’s “tradition, our life.”

Posers from the floor

Questions put to the candidates, and to the rest of us, that stayed in the room after the applause.

Adamolekun's second turn

Near the end, Ms Adamolekun returned to the stage.

On identity. “A people who cannot agree on who they are and where they’ve been and the history that they share cannot make shared progress.”

On local governments. “The hypocrisy of Lagos, for me, is stunning. Lagos, under the current president, when he was governor, was the one who was advocating that states should be able to determine if I need 10 local governments or 100. He becomes president and decides he wants to transfer money directly from the federal purse to the local governments directly, which violates the constitution, which is also why they haven’t been able to implement it.” She also said that Lagos’s LCDAs are “not recognised” outside Lagos, that “the money that they get, that the local government, which they are under, shares with them, is money that’s an internal Lagos arrangement,” and that “Lagos State managed to amend the local government law just before the last election.”

On the coastal road. “For those who live in the Lekki axis, who were in the valley between the Lekki-Epe Expressway and the Coastal Road, because the Coastal Road wasn’t done properly—that’s a federal government project—the houses there got flooded. And those are rich people’s homes.”

On the civil service. “There are actually people in the civil service who want the system to work. So they’re raw materials to work with.” She said she had spoken at the Lagos State Public Accelerator Program to young civil servants “who want to do better and want to serve better.”

On Makoko. “It’s not a conversation about poor people. It’s a conversation about people, period.”

On the election. “To echo Mr Falana’s point, if there’s anything we take away from this conversation, it is that the people who want to govern Lagos must be willing to put their egos aside and work together to ensure that the votes of Lagosians are protected. If that’s the only thing we do from here, that at the end of the day, every polling unit in Lagos State has a team from the opposition, as I’ll call them, that ensures that people’s votes count. And if, at the end of the day, APC wins, so be it.”

The moderator's note on applause

After the three opening speeches, the moderator said the NDC and PDP candidates “had a lot of applause from the audience.” Of the PDP candidate he said, “he called for the applause, and that was against the rules of the debates.”

The art competition

The afternoon closed with the winners of the Felabration art competition, announced by Segun Bucknor, a member of the Kuti family and one of the organisers. The first prize of ₦1 million went to Kelvin Matthew. Second place, ₦750,000, went to Anita Nkem, and third, ₦500,000, to Zachariah Ridwan. Entries came “from all over the world,” and the organisers said the winners received their cheques on the day. Concerts continue through the week to 18 October.

The numbers

Several figures were put on the table. Here they are side by side, with the nearest published figure we found.

What we checked

Questions we are putting

We are seeking comment on each of these, and will publish any reply in full.

What happens next

Felabration continues to Sunday, 18 October, with concerts at the Shrine, and headline performances by Femi Kuti and the Positive Force, Made Kuti, and Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. Lagos Metropolitan will continue to report on the candidates, and to check what they say. If you were at the debate and have corrections to anything above, or if you are named in it and wish to respond, write to us.