The lawmaker representing Surulere I in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Desmond Elliot, has distanced himself from the allegations that he played a leading role in the impeachment of Speaker Mudashiru Obasa in 2025.
Elliot, in an interview on ‘Sunrise Daily’, a programme on Channels Television on Tuesday, insisted that he neither initiated nor masterminded the impeachment process.
The Nollywood star-turned politician noted that he was outside Nigeria when Obasa was removed as Speaker and only signed the impeachment document after returning and discovering that the majority of lawmakers had already endorsed it.
“It was a topic that was already dead and buried. It was sorted out and the House is already moving on. Right Honourable Mudashiru Obasa continued as the Speaker of the House.
“I did not mastermind anything. I had nothing at all. The only thing I did was to append my signature when I came back and I saw a bunch of us, if not all of us, had already appended a signature to say, ‘Oh, it was the party who wanted it.’
“But eventually, the number one Asiwaju called and said, ‘I didn’t order that, I didn’t know anything about it,’” he said.
Elliot’s reaction is coming after claims by the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, who recently suggested that Elliot was among those behind the controversial move against the Speaker.
Gbajabiamila made the remark during an All Progressives Congress, APC, stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos last Thursday, where he said Elliot’s involvement in the crisis nearly cost him his position.