The Inspector-General of Police Kayode Egbetokun has indefinitely extended the withdrawal of security detail to Lagos traditional rulers, Oba Omogbolahan Oniru and Oba Saheed Elegushi, according to a report by Peoples Gazette.
The report, citing credible sources said said President Bola Tinubu authorised the IG to keep withholding government-provided security to the monarchs after learning that they backed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in the controversial impeachment of Rt. Hon Mudashiru Obasa as the Speaker of Lagos House of Assembly in January.
The president, the report said, was incensed that Governor Sanwo-Olu mismanaged the increasingly fragile Lagos politics when he failed to contain lawmakers before Obasa’s January 13 removal, vowing to punish not just the governor but all those who coopted the scheme.
Police vans that once mounted intimidating presences outside the palaces of the monarchs were no longer there, as the publication observed over the weekend.
Oba Oniru, according to the report, has already hired private security guards because he doesn’t know when his government security would be reinstated.
President Tinubu is reported to have been incensed by the the roles both monarchs played, questioning why they were not demurred when Governor Sanwo-Olu told them he had presidential approval to discard Obasa.
Although Sanwo-Olu denied involvement in Mr Obasa’s ordeal and attributed his impeachment strictly to the decision of the House of Assembly, the President has not hidden his displeasure against him. And despite, Obasa having been returned to his seat, the President had sanctioned punishments to be meted out to all that partook in the grand plot.
Meanwhile, spokesman for Mr Oniru absolved the monarch of any wrongdoing in the political crisis still dogging Lagos weeks after Mr Obasa was reinstated, saying his only involvement came by way of his blood ties to Ms Meranda, who was the primary beneficiary in Mr Obasa’s short-lived ouster.