ONE month after his removal as the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, has been absent from the sittings in the House.
This newspaper reports that Obasa was removed by the majority of the 40 lawmakers in the House on January 13, 2025, which makes one month today, February 13, 2025.
The lawmakers cited financial misappropriation and abuse of office as parts of the grounds for Obasa’s removal.
Obasa, who was away in the United States when he was removed, denied the allegations upon his return to Lagos on January 25, 2025, asking the lawmakers to prove their corruption allegations against him.
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He also claimed to still be the Speaker of the House, faulting his removal process.
“My status in the house? I believe strongly I am still the speaker until the right thing has been done. If you want to remove me, remove me the proper way and I will not contest it.
“I’m a Muslim and I believe in fate. But let’s do it the way it should be done,” he told journalists shortly after addressing a crowd of supporters at the Speaker’s Lodge, GRA Ikeja on January 25.
The PUNCH reports that Mojisola Meranda, a former Deputy Speaker, who replaced Obasa as the new speaker, has presided over at least five sittings since Obasa’s removal.
Meranda, who has set up new principal officers and committees at the House, will be presiding over a sixth plenary today since Obasa’s removal.
Despite his arrival to the country, Obasa has not been sighted at the House, even as political controversy within his party, the All Progressives Congress, continues to trail the former Speaker’s removal.
The former Speaker’s seat as a lawmaker cannot be declared vacant until he is absent for more than one-third of meetings of the House in a year.
This is according to Chapter 5, Part II, Section 109 (1)(f) of the Nigerian Constitution (1999), which states that a member of a State House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if “Without just cause, he is absent from meetings of the House of Assembly for a period amounting in the aggregate to more than one-third of the total number of days during which the House meets in any one year.”
A source in the Obasa camp, who spoke with The PUNCH on Wednesday, echoed the position of the Vice Chairman of Agege Local Government Area where Obasa is from, that the Lagos State House of Assembly “is still on recess.”
“The House is still on recess,” the source said.