“I’m sorry, I have no excuse.”
Desmond Elliot said it on his knees. The video, filmed Sunday and now everywhere on Nigerian social media, shows the Lagos lawmaker and former Nollywood star pleading with Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, for forgiveness. “Ẹ má bínú, Daddy,” Elliot added in Yoruba. Don’t be angry, sir.
Months of bad blood led to this moment.
Elliot represents Surulere Constituency I in the Lagos State House of Assembly. He wanted the APC ticket again. Gbajabiamila, the man widely seen as the real power broker in Lagos APC politics, backed someone else: Barakat Odunuga-Bakare.
Elliot didn’t take it quietly.
He withdrew from the May primary altogether, claiming his supporters faced intimidation and political pressure. Then he rejected the result outright and threatened to fight it through the party’s internal appeal process. It read like a man ready for war.
Odunuga-Bakare won anyway. Decisively. She polled 11,385 votes. Elliot managed 270.
That gap tells its own story.
Four months later, the fight is over. Elliot is the one asking for peace, and he’s asking loudly. “I have nothing other than to say I’m deeply sorry and I am hoping to be cultured in the future,” he told Gbajabiamila in the clip, before appealing to be let back into the APC fold in Lagos.
Nigerians online have not been gentle.
Get instant alerts and updates based on your interests. Be the first to know when big stories happen.
One widely shared post mocked the sight of a 50-something politician on his knees before a political godfather, calling out the theatre of it in blunt pidgin. Others pointed to the irony: an actor known for decades on screen, now delivering what many are calling his most talked-about performance yet, except this one wasn’t scripted.
Context matters here too. Gbajabiamila had publicly called out Elliot in the run-up to the primary, accusing him of nearly wrecking his standing with President Tinubu. That’s not a small accusation inside Lagos APC circles, where loyalty to the Tinubu machine is currency.
Whether the apology buys Elliot his way back remains open. The party leadership hasn’t confirmed reinstatement. Gbajabiamila hasn’t issued a public response beyond receiving the apology on camera.
What’s certain is this: in Lagos politics, saying sorry on your feet rarely works. Elliot chose to say it on his knees instead.
