The political troubles now trailing Lagos lawmaker and Nollywood actor, Desmond Elliot, may appear on the surface like a local Surulere power tussle. But beneath the noise is a deeper revelation about the way President Bola Tinubu has managed his political empire for decades, particularly in Lagos, where his authority has rested on a careful balance of loyalists, protégés, rival camps and multiple reporting channels.
Elliot, who represents Surulere Constituency I in the Lagos State House of Assembly, has recently come under pressure following frictions linked to his fourth-term ambition and his alleged role in the crisis that shook the Lagos Assembly.
The matter reportedly became serious enough for Tinubu to reach out to his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, to call Elliot, described in some political circles as Gbajabiamila’s “boy,” to order.
That episode says a lot about Tinubu’s long-tested political method. He delegates power to his disciples, but he hardly allows any disciple to become the only channel of control in any political constituency.
For years, Tinubu’s Lagos structure has operated through layers of influence. He allows his political disciples to groom their own loyalists, but all layers are expected to ultimately look up to him as the central authority. That arrangement gives him control without requiring daily direct involvement in every ward, constituency or caucus dispute.
Under that 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.
It was allegedly through one of such alternative channels that reports reached Tinubu accusing Elliot of being among those who masterminded the crisis against one of his own key pointsmen in the Lagos political ecosystem; Mudashiru Obasa, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.
Obasa’s survival in Lagos politics has always fascinated many observers. Despite what critics describe as his difficult personal relationships with several political actors in the state, he remained protected within the Tinubu structure. The reason, according to many insiders, is simple: Obasa served a strategic purpose in Tinubu’s Lagos balancing game, especially as a counterweight to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and other emerging power centres.
That is the Tinubu political philosophy: no single loyalist must become too powerful, too comfortable or too indispensable.
The system is built on competing streams of loyalty. Rival political channels report on one another. Political gossip flows upward. Ambition is encouraged, but only within limits. Tinubu then uses the information available to him to check excesses, balance factions and prevent any one bloc from becoming dominant.
This method is not new.
In the past, Tinubu effectively used groups such as the Justice Forum, made up largely of political elders, and the Mandate Group, then strongly associated with Rauf Aregbesola, to manage tensions within his Lagos structure. During the internal rebellion associated with the camp of then Governor Babatunde Fashola, the rise of the Mandate Group helped Tinubu contain dissent and reassert control over the Lagos political machine.
But the Desmond Elliot episode may also be exposing the limits of that old model.
Tinubu’s political machinery still exists. It remains formidable. It still inspires fear and loyalty. But questions are now being asked about whether he is beginning to lose direct grip over some of the ground troops who once responded almost automatically to signals from Bourdillon.
The last local government election in Lagos provided a clue. Members of the Justice Forum reportedly secured more than 40 local government positions, underlining the strength of old political structures that have now become too deeply rooted to be casually dismissed.
The same reality is playing out in the 2027 governorship succession conversation. The emergence of Femi Hamzat as the APC governorship candidate was not simply a command imposed from above. Unlike Babatunde Fashola in 2007 and Akinwunmi Ambode in 2015, Hamzat’s emergence was not necessarily Tinubu’s first instinct.
Rather, it was reportedly strengthened by the weight of internal consensus within the Governance Advisory Council, GAC.
With many GAC members said to be sympathetic to Hamzat, partly because of his father’s historic place within the Lagos political establishment, Tinubu could hardly take a contrary position without risking deeper cracks in his Lagos base.
That is the real message from Desmond Elliot’s problems.
Tinubu remains the ultimate political leader in Lagos. But the system he built has matured into many layers. His disciples now have disciples. His old groups now have their own ambitions. Local actors now fight local battles with personal survival instincts.
In the past, Tinubu controlled the chessboard because all the pieces waited for his movement. Today, many pieces are still loyal, but they are also calculating for themselves.
Elliot’s predicament, therefore, is not just about one lawmaker seeking another term. It is about the changing character of Tinubu’s Lagos machine; still powerful, still feared, but increasingly crowded with ambitious loyalists, rival informants and ground commanders who may no longer be as easy to command as before.
Gbajabiamila’s reported decision to come down hard on Elliot was not merely about pleasing Tinubu. It also reflects a new reality within the Lagos power structure. Tinubu’s immediate disciples, especially those who have remained close to him, are now seizing the opportunity created by his relocation to Abuja to assert local control within their own jurisdictions.
They understand that power abhors a vacuum. They also understand that age, distance and the burden of presidential office have created gaps in a system once held tightly by one man’s word.
Desmond Elliot may only be one actor in this drama. But his trouble has exposed something larger: the Tinubu machine is no longer just Tinubu’s machine. It is now an empire of many ambitious men, each loyal to the king, but each quietly preparing for the day the king’s grip weakens. That is how Desmond Elliot’s blind ambition for a fourth term exposed Tinubu.
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