Mudashiru Obasa is the joint longest-serving Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. He was first elected Speaker in 2015, although he has been a member of the House since 2003, representing Agege Constituency 1.
He began his political career during Nigeria’s aborted Third Republic working as an active member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), and then, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) before a version of the party was eventually merged to form the All Progressives Congress (APC).
As Speaker, Mr. Obasa has been involved in a number of controversies, including corruption allegations. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
In June 2023, he was elected Speaker for a third consecutive term of four years, only the second man after his predecessor Ikuforiji Adeyemi, to have served so long as leader of the House since the Assembly was established in 1979.
Early Life and Education
Mr. Obasa was born on November 11, 1972, to Suleiman Obasa, a businessman “with business concerns in oil and gas and transportation sectors.” He has described his childhood as not privileged but “a peaceful one”.
He attended St Thomas Aquinas Primary School, Surulere, before proceeding to Saka Tinubu Memorial High School in Orile Agege for his secondary education. However, he was expelled from Saka Tinubu for indiscipline. He completed his O’Level education at Archbishop Aggrey Memorial Secondary School in Mushin.
After secondary school, Mr. Obasa appears to have become actively involved in politics. In his 20s, he helped to canvas for votes in Agege during local government elections. During the Abacha era, he was the UNCP party chairman for Alagba in Agege. When Chief Enoch Ajiboso contested the local government chairman seat in Agege, Mr. Obasa was one of his campaign officers.
After the return of democracy in 1999, Mr. Obasa contested for a councillor post in Agege local government and won. In 2003, he jostled to represent Agege at the Lagos State House of Assembly and won again.
During his early years at the House, Mr. Obasa had apparently returned to school, enrolled in the Lagos State University’s law programme. According to his official profile on the House’s website, Mr. Obasa graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Law in 2006. In 2007, he graduated from the Nigerian Law School. However, Mr. Obasa’s certificate credentials have been called into question.
A couple of days after Sahara Reporters questioned the integrity of his law credentials, Mr. Obasa posted a picture of himself with “some of my classmates from Nigerian Law school class 2008-09” who had paid him a solidarity visit “to dispel what they read on social media.”
“I am not perturbed by the actions of those tale bearers who feel aggrieved by my job as a legislator,” Mr. Obasa said.
Political milestones
From his days at SDP and UNCP to now being a member of the APC, Mr. Obasa can be described as an experienced grassroots politician.
During his first elective post as councillor in Agege, he was appointed Chairman of the House Committee on Education and served as a member of other committees. In 2001, he was elected as the deputy leader of the Agege local government’s legislative council.
In 2003, Mr. Obasa contested to represent Agege constituency 1 at the Lagos State House of Assembly. He won. He was re-elected in 2007 and 2011. As a member, he served as Chairman of several committees, including: rural development, public accounts (local government), budget and economic planning.
As Chairman of the public accounts committee, he led an investigation into the financial practices of local governments and alleged that some councils had been running without budgets and borrowed money from banks without following due process. He said at the time:
“I am not in any position to pass judgement, but based on what I have said, we will make recommendations to the House. Personally, I think anyone who is not capable of running or has been running the council without compliance with the rules should be shown the way out.”
In July 2023, Mr. Obasa was presented with an honorary citizenship of the state of Georgia at the Georgia Legislative Black Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, for his “service to the state of Georgia” and Nigeria.
It is not clear what his “service to the state of Georgia” means but, in 2011, Mr. Obasa registered a business in the American state. The Georgia business, De Kingrun Multipurpose LLC, was dissolved in 2020, according to government records. A likely associate of Mr. Obasa, Adegoriola Oyenusi, who has been linked to land-grabbing in Lagos, also registered a company with the name De Kingrun in Georgia, in 2021.
The 2020 corruption allegations
In March 2020, a civil society group petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to probe Mr. Obasa for unethical and illicit misappropriation of public funds. According to the Civil Society for Anti-Corruption, the Obasa-led House had spent N2.4 billion within the space of 11 months to purchase cars for themselves.
The petition also accused Mr. Obasa of creating fictitious companies for receiving government contracts, thereby flouting the code of conduct for public officials:
“De-Kingrun (Obasa) Multipurpose Nigeria Limited with CAC No: RC 748741 is one of the companies where his three children (Obasa Abdulganiyu, Obasa Hamzat and Obasa Rahaman) are Director. These children were registered as shareholders while under age. The Chairman of the Company is his father, Obasa Suleimon and one of his wives, Obasa Busayo Janet is the firth director. This company is said to be used by Speaker as a conduit pipe to get contracts from the state government which is contrary to the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.”
In June 2020, Mr. Obasa appeared before a nine-man, fact-finding panel of the House of Assembly, where he denied any wrongdoing. He said:
“We bought (Toyota) Land Cruisers for principal officers of the House. The cars we bought for them were more expensive than those of other members and we followed due process in the purchase. Also, it is not true that my wife collects N10m monthly from the House. Anyone who says she does should come with proof and evidence. My approval limit as the Speaker is N100m and anything above that would have to be approved by the Fund Management Committee.”
The fact-finding panel cleared Mr. Obasa, although the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), a civil society group, had described the panel’s activities “as a smokescreen to unchain the speaker.”
In October 2020, the EFCC invited Mr. Obasa for questioning. The commission also obtained an order to freeze three bank accounts belonging to Mr. Obasa.
Then in late October, Peoples Gazette, published Mr. Obasa’s bank transaction details, showing that he received N51.7 million 11 times in one day into his company’s – De Kingrun Multipurpose Limited – account. Peoples Gazette wrote at the time:
“The transactions, totalling N568,487,402.01, were the only activities that reflected on the account throughout that year, indicating that they were proceeds of an unexplained deal executed by the Speaker.”
Mr. Obasa has denied all corruption allegations. In 2023, the EFCC released Mr. Obasa’s accounts on the order of Judge Nicholas Oweibo after an application by Mr. Obasa’s lawyers went uncontested by the EFCC’s Counsel.
Other controversies
As Speaker, Mr. Obasa has also been involved in a number of public controversies. For example, during the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of APC supporters gathered in Agege for a rally which had Mr. Obasa in attendance. This crowd had not complied with any of the COVID-19 protocols despite the Presidential directive (COVID-19 Health Protection Regulations) and the Lagos Infectious Diseases (Emergency Prevention) Regulations, 2020 passed by Mr. Obasa himself which banned the gathering of more than fifty persons.
Also, during the #EndSARS protests, the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, accused Mr. Obasa of hiring thugs to disrupt the demonstration.
Mr. Obasa denied the accusation multiple times.
He then drew the ire of some Nigerians when he referred to victims of the violence that trailed the #EndSARS protest as “miscreants killed by the police.”
In June 2023, Mr. Obasa said the House of Assembly would “employ all legislative instruments for the support of the indigenes of Lagos”, sparking accusations of tribalism in Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state.