This article by Dr Lasisi Olagunju first appeared in Nigerian Tribune of 4 September 2023

By Lasisi Olagunju

The people of Lagos should thank their stars that their state is not a country. If it were, it would have seen worse times than Gabon of the Bongo family. Even without being a country, Lagos already has big and small Bongos with each of them exacting worship from wayfarers and home-sitters. One of them is Mudashiru Obasa, Speaker of the state House of Assembly who was “seized by courage” last week while discussing the rejection of almost half of the commissioner-nominees submitted to him for confirmation by his “colleague”, the governor. Obasa said calmly that his House had “said no and it remains so.” I watched his video with a lot of sorry. Very regal Obasa winked into the cameras and in his royalty asked all of us to look into his eyes. “Do I look like someone who can be threatened?” He asked that question and smiled. He then warned “the man living in the glass house not to throw stones. If he throws stones, the glass will be shattered.” The Lagos State governor’s office is the “glass house.” The man who ‘lives’ there is Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

On July 25, 2023, Governor Sanwo-Olu submitted 39 names to the House of Assembly for screening and confirmation as commissioners. The Obasa-led House sat and rejected 17 of the nominees; it confirmed 22. I am not interested in the rejection or confirmation, success or otherwise of any of the nominees but I am interested in the rhetoric of the rejection and the sole coded reason for the rejection of the rejected: politics. The speaker dropped that information. He said by not confirming those 17, he was protecting his party. His words: “I am trying to protect my party and I will continue to do that. We are not going to sacrifice service to our people in the name of technocrats, no. We have said no and it remains so…” Then he asked us to “get this right”, that he and his people had their “constitutional responsibility” and had “exercised the responsibility by clearing some and denying some.” He said his House had its “reasons for saying no” which “people making inputs left and right do not know.”

The enemy of the House of Assembly is on social media but Obasa spoke of his aversion to social media. He, however, said he uses WhatsApp and then mentioned “back book, Facebook, Twitter and the rest.” He warned “fourth columnists” to stop their mischief. He said there was no basis for him to fight the governor: “The governor is a brother, is a friend, is a colleague in serving the people of Lagos State.” If you doubted the speaker’s superior pedigree to the governor’s, listen to him: “The governor has been around for long. He was SA to the former deputy governor, Otunba Femi Pedro. While he was serving as S.A. to the former deputy governor, I was in this House, (as) chairman, House Committee on Rural Development. He was S. A. Establishment, Pension; I was chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts (Local Governments). And when he was heading LSPDC, I was Chairman, House Committee on Economic Planning and Budget… (then) I was the speaker of this House. And, when he became the governor, I remain the speaker.” What Obasa did not say was louder than what he said. He is 50 years old, sixteen of those years as a lawmaker; he has been elected five times into the House of Assembly. Lagos has a mortar and pestle situation; you don’t use the pot to cover its cover. Lagos did; something will crack – or “will be shattered”, to use the speaker’s words.

Who really is the captain of the Lagos ship? Was that long story about who was what before now necessary? Is the fact of Obasa’s long years in the House of Assembly enough to put him at par with the governor? If all the governor had been in politics was a special adviser here and there, should that diminish him in the eyes of the lower rung of Lagos political ladder? Did our ancestors not say that admission into the sacred grove is not a criterion for becoming an elder? What I mean here is better said in Yoruba: kò d’ìgbà tí a bá wo igbó’rò k’a tó d’àgbà awo.” In any case, when a child has been invested with the sacred costume of his family masquerade, he has become an elder and must be accorded all the respect and reverence which that status demands. Why would Obasa use the eyes of yesterday to look at Sanwo-Olu, his boss and governor? Or is the governor of a state no longer the state’s number one citizen and the speaker number three?

Obasa had no apologies for being a politician and for promoting politics over competence and he said so: “They said we are placing politics ahead of technocrats. What technocrats? What do you mean by technocrat? Who is more technocrat than (we) in this hallowed chambers?…It is not about qualifications; it is not about experience. It is not about exposure. We are the representatives of the people; the mouthpiece, the ears and the sight of the people. So, we know what we looked for. You may have this degree, you may have that degree; it may not be enough. We are given a responsibility by the constitution and we have done what we believe was the best in deciding…They talked about so many people, technocrats, technocrats; what do you mean by technocrats? I am a politician and I will remain a politician. I am not going to deny that. We must understand what a political party is. It is about a group of people who aspire to gain power, so we have the power since 1999 and we have to sustain it. We must protect our party. We’ve had technocrats in the past and these would come and go but we will remain…”

You’ve heard Speaker Obasa speak dismissively about degrees, learning, qualifications, experience and professionalism. You heard him when he asked who else could be “more technocrat” than himself and members of the House. Lagos calls itself ‘Centre of Excellence.’ And, I also ask: What can be more excellent than being ruled by the knowledgeable? Lagos is a core part of Yorubaland, Nigeria’s pacesetter in matters of education and human capital development. In the whole of the 19th century (1800-1899), the entire area now called Nigeria produced eight medical doctors; seven of the eight were Yoruba. And, in case, you want to argue this point, I give the names of these pioneers in medical practice: There was William Davies who bagged the M.R.C.S. of England at King’s College, London in 1858 and became a medical doctor. There was Nathaniel King (1874), Obadiah Johnson (1884), John Randle (1888), Orisadipe Obasa (1891) and Akinsiku Leigh-Sodipe (1892). The last in that century was Oguntola Sapara who obtained the L.R.C.P. and S. of Edinburgh in 1895. He and the earlier six were all Yoruba. Africanus Horton (1858) was the only doctor who wasn’t Yoruba in that century. He was Igbo (see Adelola Adeleye’s ‘Some Early Nigerian Doctors’, in ‘Medical History’ ; 1974, vol. 18). The author, Adeleye himself, was a professor of Neurological Surgery. He was the second Nigerian to qualify as a neurological surgeon. The first in that field was Professor Emanuel Olatunde Alaba Olanrewaju Odeku. Both of them were Yoruba. In fact, Odeku was the first African neurosurgeon to be trained in the United States. He established the National and West African Postgraduate Medical Colleges. The same Yorubaland that produced all the above is now the proud producer of a Lagos State House of Assembly which has unabashedly elevated politics above education. Obasa said: “We are not going to sacrifice service to our people in the name of technocrats, no.” What is the meaning of “service to the people”?

* Dr Lasisi Olagunju , journalist and public affairs analyst, writes from Ibadan