How Tinubu ensured I emerged Lagos speaker —Obasa

Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, on Friday, narrated how All Progressives Congress chieftain and former governor of the state, Bola Tinubu, supported his ambition to become the speaker of the Assembly in 2015.

The speaker made the revelation today during inauguration of the Agege-Pen Cinema Bridge in the Agege Local Government Area.

Obasa, who represents Agege 01 in the Assembly, took over from ex-speaker Adeyemi Ikuforiji in 2015.

While thanking Tinubu on Friday, the first speaker from Agege said, “Our father, we can’t thank him enough, what we are doing here in Agege today, he laid the foundation in 1992 and we have continued to build and sustain that foundation. And we have resolved, we will never let you down. We will continue to stand for that name BAT – Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“If you look around in Agege, politically you talk about Obasa, you talk about (Babatunde) Adejare, you talk about (Taofeek) Adaranijo, Asiwaju is our source, all of us, they are all here and I am bearing testimony.

Before I joined the House of Assembly, I started as a councillor here in this local government. Our first primary election took place in Airport Hotel. If not for his (Tinubu) intervention. We had about five delegates or six and about contestants. I had three (votes), the other person had two (votes) and another person had one and the person with one vote left to join the man that had two, making 3-3.

“If they had suspended that election, that would have been the end of it but because of his (Tinubu) intervention, it was resolved, there and there and that was the first time of Mudashiru Obasa in the Lagos State House of Assembly and without that there wouldn’t have been a speaker from Agege. Asiwaju, we thank you. God will bless you. God will continue to sustain you.”

Reacting, Tinubu described the APC in the state as “seekers of talents”, saying that was what he spotted in Obasa.

Tinubu said, “I listened to the honourable speaker tell the story of our intervention and his election, that is what leadership is for. We, in APC, are seekers of talents. We don’t destroy talents, we develop talents, we fish for them, we refine them and give them the responsibilities. That is what we find in Obasa, that is what we find Sanwo-Olu, that is what we find in Hamzat. To me, this is an homecoming to Agege.”

Others at the event include Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat; monarchs, market leaders, and members of the Agege community.

The 1.4 kilometre-long bridge is expected to end the discomfort currently experienced by motorists plying Agege-Abule Egba and Agege-Iyana-Ipaja axes.