By Kolawole Ojebisi
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has condemned the way and manner Mudashiru Obasa was reinstated as speaker of the Lagos State Assembly.
George maintained that the reinstatement shows that the Lagos legislature is at the beck and call of a person who has the power to hire and fire at will.
He stressed that with this singular act, the assembly has shown that it’s a “private enterprise” and not a democratic institution.
George spoke in an interview with Tribune on Saturday suggesting that the lawmakers’ actions undermined democratic principles.
“If they are deceiving themselves, they cannot deceive the general public,” George said. If you are the leader of a party and the party was going to go through a procedure, and they accused the speaker of a lot of inappropriate activities – financial and otherwise – shouldn’t you even address those issues?
“Since he didn’t do it, there is no need for Obasa to respond to the allegations levelled against him. The same people came back and reinstated or re-elected him. It is an indecent approach to what democracy is all about.
“If you were accused of certain misdemeanor openly and people went through a process by which they said enough of you, if you want to come back, you know you will have to defend yourself first. It’s already in the public domain, but there was an order that he should be reinstated since it is a private enterprise.
“Do you return people like that in a democratic dispensation to override whatever others had been saying? Is it that those Assembly members didn’t know what they had been talking about before they removed Obasa, or they are absolutely acting like a military organisation?”
“You can see who is in charge. It’s a private enterprise, he can hire and fire. Is that democracy? You can’t have your opinion to explain yourself based on the demands from your constituency,” George added.
Obasa was removed from office by a majority of lawmakers following allegations of financial misconduct but was later reinstated in what George described as a “disregard for due process”.
While Obasa”s removal stood for 49 days before his reinstatement, the Lagos assembly was turned into a theatre treating Nigerians to series of dramatic offerings.
The intrigues came to an end when former governors of Osun and Ogun, Bisi Akande and Olusegun Osoba, intervened and handed the reins of leadership back to the ousted speaker halting the reign of Mojisola Meranda installed as Obasa’s replacement.
