WHEN someone thought not to be up to it is making a daring move, Yoruba will say “o nse ere egele” which means, toying with fire. That will best describe the current standoff between the embattled Speaker of Lagos House of Assembly Mojisola Lasbat Meranda and the forces insisting she drops the gavel her colleagues unanimously gifted her on January 13 after wrenching it from her immediate principal, Mudashiru Obasa.
Though efforts are being made to not openly drag the nation’s First Couple, the Tinubus, into the crisis now engulfing the state’s political eco-system over the legislative change of guard, it is clear as day that only two political forces from the state have the capacity to trouble Lasbat this much since she became the third citizen of the state: President Bola Tinubu and the First Lady, now derisively called Yeye {the apex mother} in Lagos politics. This is despite the denial by the troubled Madam Speaker that the power couple, especially the First Lady who now allegedly plays the duenna in the state politics, have no hands in her ordeal.
Even the blind can see they have not only their hands fully into the relentless push to terminate her, their legs are even everywhere, with the out-sized roles security agencies are playing in the saga. Only the Commander-in-Chief or the domestic commander of the Commander-in-Chief could have engineered the ignominious stunts that played out last Monday at the state assembly complex, with Meranda, even barred from parking in the Speaker’s parking lot. And to think it was her leadership that requested for the enhanced security. That was how dramatic it got.
Meranda betraying emotions during the charged plenary where the oddities that define Nigeria’s politics were again beamed to the world which already is not taking us seriously, reminds of the turbulence that characterised the brief reign of another Madam Speaker, Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, who led the male-dominated House of Representatives as the 10th Speaker between July and October 2007.
Etteh and Meranda have some commons. Aside surnames that briefly cast doubt on their Yoruba identity at first mention, both were historically first female in their different domains. Etteh, first for Nigeria, Meranda, first for Lagos. Etteh’s five-month reign was possibly the shortest for any Reps’ speaker in an undisrupted republic in Nigeria and only eclipsed by the 50 days spent in the seat by Salisu Buhari, the first speaker of the running republic, consumed by own sleight.
So far, Meranda has chalked up 41 days in office, that is, if those not allowing her to rest liver on pancreas as Yoruba will describe unabating trouble, have not got rid of her between Friday and today. Every moment has been a nail-biter for her and her supporters, both in the assembly, who are in clear majority of 36 lawmakers and in the state’s political arena, particularly the indigenes who are now gearing for the “mother of all battles” with the First Couple, particularly Yeye Asiwaju.
Meranda’s tenure may be as turbulent as Etteh’s and is imminently likely to be as brief as the now-72-year-old’s, but there are clear departures in the making of their individual troubles. Etteh was a clear victim of misogynistic fiery darts from Northern Nigeria, rooted in some silly religious and cultural embrace as well as her own greed and injudiciousness. Orlando Owoh cautioned that “bi koko ba nfe ni lefe, a ki nje ori imado. Ta bawa jori imado, awujo kondo lao gbodo lo” {which simply means “be shrewd”}. Someone being overtly targetted for roasting should not be involved in anticipatory approval nonsense. You can call her a victim of herself.
Meranda isn’t also a saint of sorts too. Yes, she hasn’t been linked with Obasa’s alleged sleaze while serving as his Number Two, but she is clearly Bourdillion-Made like her brother, Oniru of Iruland and President Kennedy of the United States warned that those who rode on tiger’s back to power will likely end inside. No, this isn’t a validation of godfatherism or the tummy-churning one-man rule in Lagos, the supposed convergence of the best of Nigeria. Like countless others, I favour the underdog{s} in this fight and the desperation of the Agege thug, sacked from the job, is riling. But realistically, if the First Lady in insisting that the former beloved daughter isn’t wanted again, and the First Man is in support as insiders claimed, then I don’t see her surviving, because the politics of the state has been left too long in the hands of Bourdillion and now that the kingmaker is king, those opposing him, including his years-long enablers in the GAC, would have to literally slay the dragon to carry Lasbat to the finishing line, at least for this term. With her battlers controlling the power at the centre, she and her supporter lawmakers, could as well kiss APC’s return tickets goodbye. Maybe that is why the Labour defection rumour is thick in the air. And for me, why not? Let’s see how Obasa remain speaker when APC is in the minority and INEC would be burying what is left of its image declaring their seats vacant when the Rivers lawmakers’, are still intact.
And who says APC is not in crisis in Lagos.
But did someone read the resignation letter she eventually bucked? She was to step down and revert not to being the second calabash again, but an ordinary floor member! For daring, they really want to humiliate her.
Though trapped, Meranda isn’t exactly a damsel in distress. She saw the farm populated by stubborn squirrels before deciding to plant her groundnut therein as Yoruba will apportion blame to anyone in her situation. But for how long should implacable squirrels be allowed to be ruinous once they are not getting groundnuts as due or enough portion for their fancy.
Meranda’s Lilliputian confrontation of the Goliaths of Lagos politics is another opportunity to re-engineer participatory democracy in Nigeria and I am not talking about the crass opportunism of the political class. For spurning those who made her, there is no way she would not pay more than the speaker’s seat and return ticket. Her kind, from recent history of the Lagos politics, are always incinerated and even ashes thrashed. That is why she needs the undeserving rescuing.
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and then