Desmond Elliot Speaks Out Against Tinubu, Reports Emmanuel Aziken

The recent turmoil surrounding Lagos lawmaker and Nollywood actor Desmond Elliot may seem like a localized power struggle in Surulere, but it reveals a deeper insight into President Bola Tinubu's decades-long management of his political empire, particularly in Lagos, where his authority is rooted in a delicate balance of loyalists, protégés, rival camps, and multiple reporting channels.

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Elliot, who represents Surulere Constituency I in the Lagos State House of Assembly, has come under pressure due to his fourth-term ambition and alleged role in the crisis that shook the Lagos Assembly, prompting Tinubu to reach out to his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, to intervene and call Elliot to order, a move that speaks volumes about Tinubu's tried-and-tested political approach.

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Tinubu's method involves delegating power to his disciples while preventing any one of them from becoming the sole channel of control in a political constituency, instead maintaining alternative channels to receive reports and stay informed about the political landscape, thereby exerting control without requiring daily direct involvement in every ward, constituency, or caucus dispute.

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Under this system, a figure like Gbajabiamila may have his own loyalists, including Elliot, but Tinubu also maintains alternative channels through which he receives reports from the same political environment, such as the one that allegedly informed him of Elliot's role in masterminding a crisis against Mudashiru Obasa, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, a key pointsman in the Lagos political ecosystem.

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Obasa's survival in Lagos politics has fascinated many observers, despite his difficult personal relationships with several political actors in the state, due to his strategic purpose in Tinubu's Lagos balancing game, particularly as a counterweight to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and other emerging power centers, illustrating the Tinubu philosophy that no single loyalist should become too powerful or indispensable.

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Tinubu's system relies on competing streams of loyalty, with rival political channels reporting on one another and ambition encouraged, but only within limits, allowing him to use the available information to check excesses, balance factions, and prevent any one bloc from dominating, a method that has been employed in the past with groups like the Justice Forum and the Mandate Group, associated with Rauf Aregbesola.

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The Desmond Elliot episode, however, may expose the limits of this old model, as Tinubu's political machinery, although still formidable and inspiring fear and loyalty, may be beginning to lose its grip on some ground troops who once responded automatically to signals from Bourdillon, a reality hinted at in the last local government election in Lagos, where members of the Justice Forum secured over 40 local government positions.

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The 2027 governorship succession conversation has also highlighted this reality, with the emergence of Femi Hamzat as the APC governorship candidate not being a command imposed from above, but rather strengthened by internal consensus within the Governance Advisory Council, GAC, which reportedly has many members sympathetic to Hamzat due to his father's historic place in the Lagos political establishment.

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Tinubu remains the ultimate political leader in Lagos, but the system he built has matured into multiple layers, with his disciples now having their own disciples and ambitions, and local actors fighting local battles with personal survival instincts, making it increasingly challenging for him to control the chessboard as he once did.

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Elliot's predicament is not just about one lawmaker seeking another term, but about the changing character of Tinubu's Lagos machine, which, although still powerful and feared, is now crowded with ambitious loyalists, rival informants, and ground commanders who may no longer be as easy to command as before, a situation that has prompted Gbajabiamila to assert local control within his own jurisdiction.

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Gbajabiamila's decision to come down hard on Elliot reflects a new reality within the Lagos power structure, where Tinubu's immediate disciples are seizing the opportunity created by his relocation to Abuja to assert local control and prepare for the day when the king's grip weakens, marking a significant shift in the dynamics of the Tinubu machine, which is no longer just Tinubu's machine, but an empire of many ambitious men, each loyal to the king, yet quietly preparing for the future.