ECOWAS Speaker lauds renewed commitments of Nigerian MPs

Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Sidie Tunis has lauded the renewed commitments of Nigerian Parliamentarians at the ECOWAS Parliament, stating that their active participation was driving successful activities at the Parliament.

Tunis gave the commendation at an interactive session with newsmen on Thursday in Abuja lauding First Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Ahmad Wase for ensuring the active participation of the Nigerian Representatives.

According to Tunis, Nigeria has the largest number of Member of Parliaments (MPs) and the success of the Parliament was greatly determined and affected by their participation.

Tunis, however, noted that since the inception of the fifth legislature a year ago, there has been a paradigm shift as Nigerian MPs have become even more committed to attending Extraordinary Sessions and other activities.

“We had a problem with MPs not attending sessions, we had lots of issues with that in the past but I must say that I am very thankful to my First Deputy Speaker, Honorable Ahmad Wase, who is also the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly

“He is a very committed man, he has really put so much action, so much energy in the ECOWAS Parliament and he is very committed also.

“Because he is providing that kind of leadership, we have been able to get the commitments of the Nigerian MPs.,” he said.

According to him, Nigeria provides 35 of our MPs because they are the key people in the Parliament.

“In the past, we had very serious issues with Nigerian MPs but I must say with the leadership of the First Deputy Speaker, Hon. Ahmed Wasse, we have been able to move along with the MPs of Nigeria.

“So, they have been very committed in our missions, they have been very active and that was the kind of thing that was lacking before.

“Nigeria is the one leading the Parliament, when they lag behind, the Parliament lags behind so for now I must say we are having the commitments and expecting participation of Nigeria from Freetown”, Tunis said.

Tunis also said that the renewed commitment in the Fifth legislature was not just on the part of Nigerian MPs but all other countries’ MPs.

He said that irrespective of the unique challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected in-person sittings, once the borders were opened, MPs still attended the three delocalized meetings held towards the end of 2020.

“Once the borders were opened in August 2020, the first one that we had in Benin, we had very good attendance. In fact, all the three localized meetings that we held we had very good attendance from Members.

“Yes, some members were weary because they had just lifted the ban from air travels, so some of them were still very much afraid to travel because of the COVID situation but we had 70 percent from those meetings,” Tunis said.

The speaker also appreciated the countries that hosted the three delocalized meetings in 2020 for their full support.

NAN/Nnenna.O