•’Division in party finding expression in Assembly crisis

Since the advent of the current Fourth Republic in 1999, Lagos State has been politically an exclusive preserve of the ‘progressives’ who as the ruling tendency have continued to assert their dominance in the state.
Since the coming of the current order, the progressives under various appellations and garb have continued to hold on tenaciously to the levers of power and authority in the state, with Lagos almost a one-party environment.
It is to the credit of the progressives in Lagos State who have contested several elections on many platforms such as Alliance for Democracy (AD) Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that all the chief executives of state and all other officials of the state have emerged.
Apart from the current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who served a two term of office, others such as Babatunde Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode and the incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu have had the fortune of being elected on the platforms of the various parties.
Efforts by the opposition such as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) to dislodge it have usually come to nothing with the ruling tendency having the upper hand at all times owing to the sense of unity and purpose which their members attach to elections and electioneering processes.
Rather than lose grounds, they have continued to consolidate their hold on power in the state. It must however be noted that Lagos became pivotal in the bid of the ‘progressives’ to wrest power from the PDP in 2015.
Being the base of President Tinubu, Lagos still serves its useful purposes not just for the APC but also for all other parties who seek to control not only the political power of the country but also its economic nerve base. What this means is that any politician worth his salt must have more than passing interest in what goes on in the state.
Owing to their near-invincibility, the progressives have succeeded in mopping up all the dissenting voices and opinions, using the twin approach of stick and carrot. It has also utilised the approaches of sleuth and diplomacy to whittle down opposition in its over 25-year reign.
In the build up to the last 2023 general election, the APC survived the onslaught of the Obidient Movement to retain the state but not until it lost the votes cast for President Tinubu in the state to his rival in the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, who did what many felt unthinkable.
While the APC polled 572,606 votes to garner 45.04 per cent of the votes cast, the Labour Party secured got 582,454 votes representing 45.81 per cent of the votes in a feat many deemed unprecedented in the political history of Lagos State.
Not disturbed by the seeming setbacks, the APC was able to rally its members using all manner of tricks to ward off the threat of the LP through the Obedient Movement towards the residents of the state and it (APC) eventually returned Sanwo-Olu for a second term in office.
This notwithstanding, the outcome of the last general election no doubt threw open the divisions within the party which the leadership and the ranks have continued to paper over but which have now culminated in the current Assembly crisis threatening the hold of the party on the state.

2027 Governorship poll and intensity of gladiators
Several sources within the Lagos State chapter of the APC told Saturday Telegraph that the party has been plagued by intense jostle by groups and personalities for the soul of the party ahead of the 2027 election and those who are angling for the top jobs have either floated new caucuses or are making efforts to revive the old moribund ones.
“Many groups are already springing up within our party as we speak. Even those formerly dead ones are being revived by members and groups who have one ambition or the other. The simmering schism within the party is currently what is playing out in APC as we can see today,” a member, Mr. Taiwo Oloto told our correspondent during the week.
According to Oloto, some of the groups making waves who are jostling for relevance include Justice Forum, Mandate Group and others which he said are jostling for influence and control ahead of the forthcoming election ”and what they (the groups) have been doing is to wield influence around power especially within the Presidency so that their candidates can get a buy in.”
He added that many of the groups have been using the cutthroat approach to outdo one another while also exploiting the failures and mistakes of members of the other groups to score political mileage.
In the last few months, these groups and their members have taken their jostling to the state House of Assembly by taking a potshot at the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, who is seen as a contender for the plum seat even though he has not stated expressly that he would contest.

Lagos Assembly crisis as a likely ticking time bomb
Hon. Obasa is said to be the arrowhead of the Mandate Group, a very influential caucus believed to be close to the seat of power seems to be making waves, it is however being challenged for ascendancy by the Justice Forum under the headship of Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, the member representing Ikeja Federal Constituency in the lower legislative chambers.
The varying political interests are also playing out within the ranks of the Governance Advisory Council (GAC), an influential group within the Lagos State chapter of the APC as members are also very divided, with many of them showing loyalty to each of the caucuses within the party.
“It is no news that our elders in GAC belong to one caucus or the other within the APC here in Lagos. In fact, I can tell you that some of them are even leaders of some other caucuses within the party,” says Fatai Ayodele, a member in Ifako-Ijaye.
According to Ayodele, what is currently playing out in the state House of Assembly is the continuation of the ongoing war of attrition within the party as some groups are not just trying to whittle down the influence of one of the caucuses but also to make its leadership less relevant as the build up to the forthcoming election hot up.
“I can tell you for free that the target of these elements was Obasa due to his perceived plans to contest the forthcoming governorship poll. To those targeting him, he must be reduced and the best way was to remove him from office,” Ayodele told our correspondent in a telephone chat.
He further added that “Obasa too played into their hands with regards to his attitude to the leaders and the manner he has been managing the affairs of the Assembly as well as how he has been relating with the leaders in the party and the executive arm of government. These elements hint at the cold reception that was accorded the governor during the presentation of the 2025 Budget by Governor Sanwoolu.
What happened was that the occasion provided the opportunity for these elements to find a point of convergence to perfect and implement their agenda to remove him from office and they did that by reporting him to the leader, President Tinubu, who reportedly reprimanded him during a stakeholders meeting last December,” Ayodele said.
In the end, what was seen as unthinkable happened on January 15 when Obasa who was far away in the United States of America was removed by 32 of his colleagues thus setting the stage for the current crisis that is not only threatening corporate unity of the Assembly but the party as a whole. He was replaced by his deputy, Hon. Mojisola Meranda from Apapa 1 Constituency.

Reverberating impact of the sack
But, Obasa has continued to fight the battle and has refused to let go by pulling the right strings that would return him to office and the series of attempts are however said to be rupturing unity and amity within the APC as there appears to be no end in sight with regards to how to end the schism despite interventions by elders of the party.
As a means of resolving the logjam, President Tinubu constituted a committee headed by former Osun State Governor, Chief Abdulkarim Adebisi Akande. Other members of the committee include, former governors of Ogun and Lagos states, Chief Segun Osoba and Akinwunmi Ambode. In the end, the committee resolved to do away with both parties.
The committee resolved that the Lagos West Senatorial District be allowed to produce the replacement for the embattled Obasa who himself is from that district which is said to be the largest in the state by virtue of the fact that it consists of 10 out of the 20 local government areas making up the state.
As at the time of filing this report, some names had been penciled down as likely replacement but a new twist was however added when Obasa stormed the premises in a commando manner to mount the saddle, saying he remains the speaker of the Assembly, citing lack of adherence to rule of law and procedure in the process of his removal.
This has however generated some heat with many wondering why the crisis keeps festering.
“This is a drawback to moves by the elders to resolve the crisis within our party. What Obasa has done is to throw a wedge at the efforts which will not do the party any good on the long run considering the fact that he doesn’t enjoy any form of acceptance from a cross section of members of the party,” said Seun Adepoju, chieftain in Mushin.
Sounding a note of caution, Adepoju stated that “Considering the fact that we lost the presidential election at the last election due to so many factors which have not been fully resolved, throwing up another crisis like this festering one would not do the party any good as we will be enmeshed in further crisis that the opposition would exploit in the forthcoming election.”