In the Nigerian megacity of Lagos, a commercial capital of over 20 million people, the State House of Assembly is meant to be a democratic institution, a legislative body charged with representing the public will and holding the executive accountable. But recent events in the Assembly suggest that, behind the façade of parliamentary process, it is not the people’s representatives who hold the real power. Instead, that power lies in the hands of an informal circle of political elders, whose authority comes not from the voters, but from decades of patronage and backroom deals.
The story is a familiar one in Nigeria, a country whose democracy, 25 years after military rule ended, still struggles to shake off the habits of authoritarianism. In February, Mojisola Meranda, the newly elected Speaker of the Lagos Assembly, was abruptly forced to resign. Her crime? Falling afoul of the internal power struggles within the dominant All Progressives Congress (APC), the party that controls both the Assembly and the powerful political machinery of Lagos.
Lagos Legislature and Democracy
Meranda’s removal was not the result of a formal impeachment vote or a robust legislative process. Instead, it was the work of a panel of party elders led by former Governors Bisi Akande and Olusegun Osoba. This unelected panel stepped in, imposed a political settlement, and reinstated Mudashiru Obasa, who had been previously removed as Speaker, leaving Meranda out in the cold.
This is not the functioning of a healthy democracy. It is the sign of a legislature that answers, not to voters, but to godfathers.
What happened in Lagos is emblematic of a troubling trend across Nigeria’s political landscape: the growing reliance on informal power structures to settle disputes that should be resolved through formal democratic processes. Political scientists have a term for this kind of system — hybrid democracy. In hybrid regimes, institutions like legislatures and courts exist on paper, but their authority is constantly undercut by informal practices that concentrate power in the hands of a few well-connected elites. Elections are held, laws are passed, but the real decisions are made behind closed doors by men who were never on the ballot.
In Lagos, this means that the Assembly functions less as a lawmaking body and more as a subsidiary of the APC’s internal power structure. Lawmakers are not free agents acting on behalf of their constituents. They are political clients, whose careers depend on their willingness to submit to party elders. This is not just undemocratic; it is corrosive. It reduces the Assembly to little more than a rubber stamp, with its leadership chosen not by the people or even by its members, but by a cabal of retired politicians who operate as the true custodians of power.
The consequences are profound. When legislatures lose their independence, they lose their ability to check the executive, hold hearings, or meaningfully represent public interests. In Lagos, a city facing staggering inequality, housing shortages, and a crumbling infrastructure, a legislature that answers to party bosses instead of the people is unlikely to push for the reforms the public desperately needs. Worse still, it sends a clear message to younger politicians: loyalty to godfathers matters more than competence, vision, or public service.
Nigeria’s democracy cannot mature under these conditions. What the Lagos Assembly needs is not a panel of party elders acting as a shadow court, but a transparent and legally grounded process for resolving internal disputes. If a Speaker must be removed, it should happen through open debate and a recorded vote, not through secret meetings where the only voices heard are those of political patrons.
This is a challenge not only for Lagos, but for Nigeria’s entire democratic project. Until legislatures — both at state and federal levels — build stronger internal norms that protect them from external manipulation, Nigerian democracy will remain stuck in a twilight zone between authoritarianism and true democracy.
Lagosians deserve a legislature that belongs to them, not to a handful of political retirees operating from the shadows. The only way forward is to shine a light on these informal power structures and insist on genuine legislative independence. Anything less is democracy in name only.
