Surely, the parties in the ongoing impeachment crisis rocking the Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA) ought to have known that such an utterly avoidable internal implosion would make them vulnerable to vicious attacks by those who envy and deplore the fact that their party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in its various mutations at different times since 1999 as AD, AC, ACD, ACN and now APC, had maintained near one-party electoral dominance of the country’s economic nerve centre over the last two and a half decades. In a widely circulated piece on online platforms, for instance, one Dr Afolabi Gbajumo, after a lengthy dissection of the crisis from his own perspective accused both factions in the current LSHA imbroglio and even the executive of unbridled corruption, illicit accumulation of wealth and venality without the slightest scintilla of evidence.

True, Lagos is not yet anywhere near where it should be in developmental terms as it is still a work in progress as all human communities always are. But it would take the height of intellectual dishonesty not to admit the glaring fact that compared to where she was pre-1999, the megacity state has made remarkable progress on all fronts leaving virtually every other state in the country far behind. Today, she is not only the sixth largest economy in Africa, Lagos is gradually emerging in the ranks of leading megacities of But this is the kind of unfair onslaught that disputants in the LSHA open their party to and it is unfortunate that they are digging in deeper in their trenches in what can only be an ultimately self-destructive internecine warfare. However, what are the issues?

With no less than two-thirds of the members of the LSHA controlled by the APC undertaking his impeachment on January 13, 2025, when he was away on vacation to the US, it is logical to argue that the erstwhile Speaker of the House, Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, had lost not only legal but also moral legitimacy. And there is no doubt that the members of the LSHA are constitutionally empowered to elect and remove their principal officers through stipulated rules and procedures. And the vote of confidence passed on the newly elected Speaker, Mrs Mojisola Meranda, by a majority of members before the House adjourned sine die suggests that the legislators are indeed fed up with Obasa whom they have accused of arrogant, insensitive and corrupt leadership.

The problem is that in politics, things are often not as they seem to be. For example, on 11th November, 2024, members of the LSHA passed a vote of confidence on the allegedly corrupt, insensitive and arrogant Mudashiru Obasa as Speaker of the House. As the This Day Newspaper reported the story, “The vote of confidence on the Speaker coincided with his 52nd birthday as the lawmakers eulogized him for uplifting the country’s democracy through laws that impact positively on the people. Majority Leader, Noheem Adams said during plenary presided over by Deputy Speaker, Mojisola Lasbat Meranda, that his motion, seconded by Hon. Sa’ad Olumoh (Ajeromi Ifelodun. 1), followed a wide consultation”. What then had changed between this time and the ‘impeachment’ of Obasa on January 13 this year?

Again, since Obasa had lost the confidence of the vast majority of his colleagues and it is even claimed that civil servants in the LSHA bureaucracy boisterously celebrated his removal, why was he impeached when he was out of the country on vacation? Since he was so reportedly overwhelmingly unpopular, could he have done anything to stop his removal if he was present? Wouldn’t that have denuded the process of his impeachment of its seeming surreptitious and conspiratorial secretiveness and accorded it more legitimacy? After all, this is not the first time that a Speaker of the LSHA would be removed in this dispensation. Hon Waheed Jokotola Pelumi was the Speaker of the LSHA between June 2, 2003 and December 29, 2005. Pelumi was removed from office by his colleagues and replaced by Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji who remained in office from December 29, 2005, till the end of the life of the 7th Assembly in 2015. Pelumi was not removed from office in his absence and the governor at the time, now President Bola Tinubu did not oppose the change of leadership which reinforced his democratic credentials.

It is ironic that those who mobilized a massive security presence in the Assembly premises to facilitate the removal of Obasa cried foul that officials of the DSS had invaded the Assembly premises to prevent the Speaker, Hon. (Mrs Miranda) from accessing her office and allegedly to facilitate the resumption of Obasa who had dismissed his impeachment as defective and not following due process. The DSS has since made public a letter signed by the Deputy Clerk of the House, Mr A.T.B. Ottun, to prevent alleged plans by Obasa to forcefully resume in his office on February 18, 2025. Reports widely disseminated on social media that a cache of sophisticated arms were suddenly discovered in Obasa ‘s office weeks after Mrs Meranda had supposedly been making use of the same office does little to help the credibility of the anti-Obasa elements. It gives the impression of a desperation to de-market and instigate public opinion against the embattled Agege legislator.

During Adeyemi Ikuforiji’s tenure as Speaker, he led the House in offering robust checks and balances to the executive during the tenure of the highly cerebral Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). But this the easy going but inwardly steely lawmaker from Epe did without ever insulting the governor or demeaning his office. Thus, that Obasa kept Governor Sanwo-Olu and his entourage waiting for nearly four hours before the commencement of the presentation of the state’s 2025 budget estimates and without any apologies for this slight is inexplicable.

Rather, his needlessly combative speech on that occasion was the height of arrogance which has been widely condemned by the public. Had members of the Assembly limited themselves to Obasa ‘s arrogance and insensitivity which was publicly on display in his treatment of Sanwo-Olu, in the allegations that led to his impeachment, it would be hardly possible to fault their action. But they also leveled grave allegations of financial misdemeanor and recklessness against him which in my view necessitates that he be given the opportunity to defend himself before being sanctioned in accordance with the principle of fair hearing. Since he was not given the chance to defend himself before his impeachment, could this be likened to shaving his head in his absence (apologies to MKO Abiola)?

True to his calm and difficult to ruffle demeanor and simple, unassuming carriage, Sanwo-Olu responded with philosophical serenity and enigmatic taciturnity, to what was perceived as an unwarranted slight on his person and office by Obasa. But then, we must look beyond Obasa ‘s annoying abrasiveness and a disposition to easy combustibility, which makes the prospect of his ever occupying the position of governor as he is rumored to desire, frightening.

It will be recalled that in August, 2023, the LSHA under Obasa ‘s leadership, had rejected 17 of the 39 names Sanwo-Olu had forwarded to the legislature for clearance to be appointed as commissioners in his cabinet. In an unnecessarily bad-tempered speech on the floor of the House during that episode, Obasa had decried the fact that the nominees were grossly unrepresentative of the diverse local government constituencies in the state while also not reflecting the requisite Christian-Muslim balance that had always been taken into account in constituting the State Executive Council.

As the late Oba Olatunji Hazmat, a Frontline Lagos and national progressive political leader of uncommon perspicacity stated in his gripping book, ‘Reflections of A Public Man’, “Lagos may be the greatest cosmopolitan city in Nigeria, but just like the nation itself, it can not march forward even in the matters of the least consideration of governance without accommodating the diverse interests, biases and native proclivities that shape and girdle her formative character…For fairness and wide judgement, the governor, the mayor or any other official of the state must consult others, must bring diverse interests into focus and attention in the choice of cabinet members, in the composition of parastatals and other allied governmental bodies”.

But beyond this, Obasa raised the pertinent point of the undue dichotomy between so called technocrats and politicians in governance in Lagos State and what he perceived as the unfair favouritism given to the former in filling cabinet and non-cabinet positions particularly under the Sanwo-Olu administration. In its report on the face- off between the House and the governor on the matter, the Premium Times of August 29, 2023, wrote that “But some party loyalists said the main reason some nominees who are technocrats were rejected was because they were not known in their constituencies and had no electoral value. Michael Uju, a public affairs analyst, said the disqualification was political. “Unfortunately, there is the sense that most of those rejected by the House are the technocrats among them who are not so much into party politics,” he said.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s administration as Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic is still the reference point in qualitative developmental governance in Nigeria. Its achievements were gargantuan and path-breaking. In his autobiography, the great Awo commented on his Cabinet thus, “Second, my team of Ministers was unexcelled. It was a team of which any head of government anywhere in the world would be proud. It was a well-knit, highly disciplined and fanatically loyal team. Each of them knew his subject well”. None of these men would be regarded as technocrats or even intellectuals in today’s lingo. They were educated men and professionals in diverse fields but to be appointed into public office in the Action Group (AG) at the time, you had to have a very strong linkage with your grassroots communities. This was made more imperative by the parliamentary system of the First Republic which required that those to be appointed as Cabinet members first had to win elections into the legislature as elected representatives of their constituencies. Even though he could have couched his argument in less inelegant and confrontational language, Obasa had made the point that he was concerned about the grassroots vibrancy of the APC in the state. This is certainly a pertinent concern even if it is true that his real motive was his assumed governorship ambition in 2027.

The truth of the matter is that although successive APC administrations in Lagos State have performed relatively remarkably well in infrastructure development, social services delivery and security among others – the primary purpose of government – the electoral performance of the party has declined with each election since 2011 and one reason for this is the ever growing alienation and distance between the government and the grassroots. In the 2007 governorship election, Fashola of the AC scored 593,300 votes to 394,956 for Senator Muslim Obanikoro of the PDP. In 2011, BRF scored a record 1,509, 113 votes to win reelection while Shamsideen Adegboye of the PDP recorded 300,450 votes. In 2015, Mr Akinwumi Ambode of the APC had 811,994 votes while Mr Jimi Agbaje of the PDP had 659,788 votes. As for 2019, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC won 739,445  votes to 206, 141 votes scored by Jimi Agbaje of the PDP.

In the 2023 governorship election, Sanwo-Olu won reelection with 762,134 votes to 312,329 votes scored by Gbadebo (Chinedu) Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP). To secure his victory after the APC had unprecedentedly lost the earlier presidential election in Lagos to Peter Obi’s LP by nearly 10,000 votes, the party had to scramble frantically to mobilize primordial sentiments to ensure Sanwo-Olu’s reelection.

 Had the governorship election come first, would Sanwo-Olu have become history in Lagos State? The answer is anyone’s guess. A school of thought believes that the electorally dysfunctional overly elitist outlook and disposition of governance in Lagos State has heightened under Sanwo-Olu and this is dangerous as the crucial 2027 elections approach, an election in which the triumph of the APC will depend on the degree to which it has regained its organic linkage with the grassroots. This is probably the point Obasa was making but his petulant mode of delivery distorted and undermined his message.

What then is to be done about the seeming impasse as regards the position of Speaker of the LSHA? The right of the members to elect their principal officers cannot be contested but this must be in line with their extant rules, due process and the guidelines of the party. The enthusiastic support given to Hon. Mrs Meranda so far indicates that she enjoys considerable goodwill with her colleagues as well as the bureaucracy in the LSHA. But some voices in the party contend that the next Speaker should come from either Lagos West where Obasa comes from or Lagos East if legislators from Lagos West are not interested in the Speakership position as it is claimed.

Both Mrs Meranda and the governor are from Lagos Central and this contradicts the party’s zoning formula. The aggrieved members no longer want Obasa as Speaker and they have successfully removed him at least until the courts adjudicate in the matter. But they cannot at the same time unilaterally jettison the party’s power sharing formula. Honourable Mrs Meranda has demonstrated her value and the high esteem in which her colleagues hold her which must be a function of her personal attributes despite her having been Obasa’s deputy. But she may have to stoop to party supremacy today to conquer a future that is politically exceedingly bright for her.