….consensus arrangement deadlocked
Patrick Okohue, Lagos
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The battle for the speakership of the Lagos State House of Assembly may have gotten more interesting as efforts by some power brokers in the House to get the members to come to a compromise of who should lead the 8thAssembly was deadlocked Tuesday, as the members refuse to agree on a common candidate.
A source at the meeting of returning and new members of the Assembly told Newswatch Times that the choice of who becomes the speaker in the next Assembly have been trimmed down to two from the about eight persons who had earlier shown interest in the position.
According to the source, the lawmakers at a meeting were able to prevail on other aspirants to slow down on their interest while allowing Mudashiru Obasa representing Agege constituency 1 and Rotimi Abiru representing g Shomolu Constituency 11 to slug it out.
The source said that though Adebayo Oshinowo popularly called Pepper, representing Kosofe Constituency 1, who is a key power broker both in the Assembly and among key players in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State and said to be supporting Obasa’s ambition tried in vain to get the members to buy into his agenda without success.
Though Oshinowo was said to have told the other lawmakers why Obasa should be the next speaker, the others, especially the younger elements were said to have told him that Obasa does not fit the image of the speaker they want.
Majority of the lawmakers are believed to prefer Abiru who they argue can easily fit into the shoes of the outgoing speaker, Rt Hon Adeyemi Ikuforiji and did not miss words in telling Oshinowo so.
In his effort to convince them, Oshinowo was said to have told his colleagues that even if someone who is not competent is elected into a position, that if he is surrounded by competent people he will still make success of the office, an argument the lawmakers did not buy.
As the meeting was deadlocked, the source said it was agreed that, to resolve the impasse, an election will be held Thursday among the lawmakers to pick between Obasa and Abiru who the next speaker of the House will be.
As at the time of going to press some of the key players could be seen moving from one office to the other apparently in an effort to get some of them to change their mind.
