Apart from the 40 members of the Lagos State House of Assembly who were physically present, the gallery of the legislative chambers was also jammed with chieftains of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as staff members.
For the chieftains of the APC, the plenary of that day March 3 was an all-important one considering that they had to be on ground to implement what the Leader, President Bola Tinubu, had instructed them to do and that is to see to it that the removed Speaker, Mudasiru Ajayi, was returned to office.
Led by Chief Abdulkarim Adebisi Akande, a former Osun State governor and the first chairman of the party, the occasion was a very important one for the APC in Lagos owing to the fact that it is the base of President Tinubu.
Akande had a few days before led a committee that also had a former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba, immediate past Lagos Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode and others to mediate in the crisis that engulfed the Assembly occasioned by the removal of Mudashiru Obasa from office by no fewer than 32 colleagues.
The embattled speaker was removed along with the former Clerk of the Assembly, Mr. Olalekan Onafeko, in January amid corruption allegation. Obasa was replaced by Mojisola Meranda, making her the first female Speaker of the assembly.
Unfortunately, Meranda only lasted 49 days. She announced her resignation following a series of meetings that took place prior to that day of announcement between the duo brokered by the Akande led committee as well as the Attorney General and Commissioner for the Ministry of Justice, Mr. Lawal Pedro.
With the new arrangement, Meranda thus reverted to her former position of deputy speaker just as it is expected that Obasa will have to take another look at the recent decision of the former speaker to tinker with the leadership structure of the Assembly as well as the dissolution of the various standing committees of the Assembly.
After observing the series of legislative procedure that restored him back to office, Obasa in his speech played down the crisis to suggest that all had returned to normalcy when he thanked his colleagues for their loyalty to the party.
“We want to assure Lagosians that we have resolved and determined to serve their interest and protect their interest always. Our major responsibility is to represent them and what we have been doing.
“What is happening here today shows that the Lagos State House of Assembly is capable and is a House of integrity. It is a house that used internal mechanism to resolve in the interest of the institution and our party.
“Today is not the day for speech making but to celebrate my colleagues and thank them for all they’ve been doing. I am sure we will continue to work together in peace, love and harmony,” he said.
No sooner had he finished his speech than the cracks which many felt had been cemented by the leaders began to reappear as feelers coming from the legislative chambers indicate that all is not well despite public posturing of the gladiators.

Purported agreement for truce
Though, the report of the Akande-led committee is yet to be made public as at the time of filing this report, sources within the APC hinted in a chat with Saturday Telegraph that it was agreed that the duo of Obasa and Meranda had been told to give way for peace to reign.
“We were told by some of our people close to the committee that the two of them had been recommended to give way through resignations for another neutral member to emerge as the Speaker,” a party source close to the party’s Lagos secretariat who pleaded not to be named said.
He (the source) added that ‘When he was removed by his colleagues, he (Obasa) went around to beg leaders of the party to give him a soft landing by urging them to prevail on his colleagues to allow him back and to eventually voluntarily resign from office.”
The same recommendation was also made to Meranda by the committee owing to the fact that she hails from Lagos West district where the Governor also comes from, the rationale behind the call by Obasa and his supporters that the West district be allowed to produce another speaker for the Assembly.
“Obasa’s argument eventually swayed many of the leaders of the party which eventually turned against Meranda with a call on her to also give way thus prompting Obasa to manoeuvre his way back to power,” the source said.
According to him, this was what gave rise to the decision for the return of the former Speaker last Monday with the understanding that the re-instated speaker would keep to his side of the bargain by resigning to give way for the emergence of a new helmsman for the Assembly.
“Rather than solve the problem once and for all, the two feuding camps have further continued to dig deep into their respective trenches with no hope in sight for lasting truce within the Assembly,” the source said.

Obasa’s charm offensive
Many people in the know stated that the re-instated Speaker has been extending an olive branch to many of his colleagues who have continued to show hostility to him since he returned.
Obasa has held many meetings with his colleagues with a view to enlisting their support but all the efforts have continued to meet with brick wall as virtually all of them are asking him to resign in line with the agreement purportedly reached before his re-instatement.
Rather than do what the anti-Obasa lawmakers see as the needful, Obasa recently during a meeting with his fellow lawmakers pushed for the re-instatement of former Clerk, Olalekan Onafeko.
In the meeting held at the Assembly complex in Alausa, Ikeja, Obasa pushed for Onafeko to return to his duty post, citing the judgment of the Industrial Court describing his removal as unlawful, null and void.
Those privy to the meeting however stated that virtually all the lawmakers that took part in the meeting were adamant about such possibility, stating that the re-instated speaker was pushing them too far without addressing their misgivings against him (Obasa).
Some other members of the APC who spoke separately with our correspondent however stated that some of the lawmakers are somehow shifting grounds in the interest of peace.
“I can tell you for free that some of them are already shifting ground and considering some of the proposals being put forward to them by Obasa. Their attitude is gradually shifting towards, let’s see how things go,” the source said.