A new Speaker for the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States is expected emerge at its 2024 second extraordinary session taking place in Kano State, North West Nigeria.
The Speakership position has been zoned to Togo in accordance with the rotational system of the regional body.
The Togoleses delegation was absent at the inauguration of the 6th Legislature in Abuja in March.
The delegation is expected to be sworn in at the Kano session, which is scheduled to commence on the 21st of May, 2024.
The Togolese delegation emerged after the conduct of their parliamentary elections and the names of the Togoleses representative’s sent to the Community parliament.
Nigerian Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau, who is the first Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, was elected as the acting Speaker of the Sixth Legislature of the Parliament to avoid a vacuum.
Preparatory, to the Extra Ordinary Session, the Community Parliament had its Bureau meeting which was virtual and Conference of Bureau meeting there after which is made up Chairpersons and rapporteur of various committees.
The discussed the works plan for the year which will be brought to the plenary for discussion and adoption.
Speaking to journalists after the sessions, the Acting Speaker who is also the First Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Senator Jibrin Barau, said that they decided to hold the extra ordinary session in Kano other to bring the community closer to grassroots for them to truly feel the impact of the community parliament..
Senator Barau who is the Nigeria’s Deputy Senate President, said, the Parliament needs to know the People they are serving at the Grassroots with the Citizens also vice versa knowing them.
“Tomorrow, Tuesday, is going to be the session that will implore all the parliamentarians and of course the invited guest that will be here with us tomorrow, and what we had today is the Bureau meeting – between the leadership of the Parliament and the committee chairmen and other principal officers of the parliament.”
He added that, tomorrow will be a session for all the parliamentarians and VIPs are going to be invited to witness the session and it’s going to be a general meeting.
Senator Barau Jibrin disclosed that the representatives from Togo will be attending session later in the week will hopefully be sworn in on Thursday.”
He said, “In this meeting, the entire assembly has been brought here and in the assembly we don’t have any kind of restrictions. When we have a parliament, everything concerning the entire community will be discussed.”
“When you have a parliament even if you have an agenda, you still have a room for everybody to bring forward whatever he feels that we feel should be discussed.
So it’s an open session for parliament and they don’t have restrictions. Everything about the society, about the economy, about ECOWAS, about the west African sub region can be discussed. So, it’s an open ended kind of a scope in respect of what is going to be discussed”, the First Deputy Speaker noted.
He insisted that it’s the first time that you have this kind of meetings and sessions of ECOWAS parliaments taking place in Kano. It’s in line with what we’ve said, we are here so that Kano will know ECOWAS parliaments and ECOWAS parliaments will know Kano.
“Kano is the centre of Commerce of the entire northern Nigeria. It is the political capital if you like political nerve centre in the entire northern Nigeria. So that’s why we brought this session to hold here so that we bring ECOWAS closer to the people so that people will know ECOWAS parliaments and ECOWAS parliaments will go deeper into our various societies
