Lagos Lawmakers Reject Obasa Speakership …As He Holds Plenary With Only Four Member

By Adesina Soyooye

Lawmakers pledge loyalty to Meranda say they are tired of Obasa’s high handedness and autocratic disposition

Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly, have decried the return of Mudashiru Obasa as  Speaker. Obasa was impeached on January 13, 2025, by over 2/3 of the Constitutional-required Members who then went ahead and elected his Deputy, Mojisola Meranda as Speaker.

Surprisingly, however, Obasa stormed the Assembly Premises Thursday, February 27, with hoards of security operatives, and took over the Speaker’s office after the door was forced open.

The House had, in the past two weeks, adjourned Plenary indefinitely over the crisis which engulfed it since Obasa’s impeachment.

On return on Thursday without a Court order or an official notification from the Assembly, Obasa declared that he was back and remained the Speaker. Shortly after, his loyalists, in buses, swarmed the Assembly premises like bees in celebration of his return.

However, majority of the members have rejected his return, and described it as an insult thrown at them and their Consttuencies. They insisted on his ouster, and pledged support and loyalty to Speaker Meranda.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Security and Strategy, Steven Ogundipe, who spoke for 36 members of the Assembly insisted that Meranda remains the Speaker and that they remain committed to her leadership. Obasa’s impeachment, he said, stands.  He called on the Leadership of the APC in the State to urgently wade into the crisis.

His words: “We were approached by our Leaders that we should remain calm and take things easy. But we are surprised to see what is happening here today.

“We won’t take laws into our hands, just as we told the staff not to take laws into their hands. But we all belong to different consequences, and we have our mandate. Whatever has to happen, the leadership should speak to us and not this charade that we are seeing.

“We are not happy. We have been law abiding. We have not gone out of our way against the State. We, also, want to be respected and given our dignity; to be shown that we are elected. I am appealing to the leadership of our Party that we cannot continue this way.”

Meanwhile, Obasa presided over Plenary on Thursday, with only four members of the Senate. He was accompanied into the Assembly Complex by the two members representing Mushin State Constituencies 1 and 2 – Ayinde Akinsanya and Noheem Adams respectively.

The remaining 36 Lawmakers were present at the Assembly Complex but refused to enter the Chamber for Plenary. Instead, they chose to stay at the Assembly’s garden.

A confident Obasa in response to their absence said he cannot force anybody to join in Plenary, but assured that he would not victimise any of them as they had been working as brothers. But it is a claim the members put a lie to and said they were tired of his high-handedness and autocratic disposition.

The stage was set for Obasa’s return when  all his Security Details were restored while that of Meranda was withdrawn without her prior knowledge.