The lawmaker representing Surulere 1 Constituency in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Desmond Elliot, has admitted to involvement in the impeachment saga of the Lagos Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa.
PrimeTimes Nigeria reports that Desmond Elliot made this known while reacting to comments by President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, regarding the Obasa leadership crisis and claims that he almost lost his job.
Recall that some members of the state assembly had impeached Obasa as Speaker, but the President reversed their decision.
Speaking at a gathering, Gbajabiamila revealed that he had warned Elliott to distance himself from the plot to impeach the Speaker, but his warning was not taken.
He also stated that, after a call from the Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS), he asked Desmond Elliott to issue a public statement disassociating himself from the plot to remove Obasa, but the lawmaker refused.
However, speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’, Desmond Elliot said he was stunned to hear Gbajabiamila almost lost his position over Obasa’s leadership crisis.
The movie star-turned-politician said he had thought the directive to impeach Obasa was from President Tinubu, stressing that many other lawmakers had signed before him.
He said, “Frankly speaking, I was not in the country; my wife and I travelled during that period between January and Febuary. We were in recess and it was an opportunity for us to travel, that was the time Honourable Mudashiru Obasa was impeached, it came to me as shock because I was in South Africa then, so two days after I came back, I was also as confused as everybody was, and I saw that almost everybody had signed.
“I pretty much thought that the directive was from the President and I appended my own signature, some people who travelled and returned also appended their signature. Eventually, Mr President called us and made us understand that the directive was not from him and asked us to return the Speaker and we did. So my leader coming out to say that he almost lost his job, came as a shock to me.”