In a matter of days, the Speaker of the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will elect a new speaker to lead the regional parliament in its 6th Legislature. The election will be held during the 2024 second extraordinary session in Kano State, North West Nigeria.
According to the protocols governing the Legislature, the speaker is to emerge from Togo to where the position has been zoned to based on rotation in alphabetical order.
The Togolese delegation was not available during the inauguration of the 6th Legislature in Abuja on April 4, 2024 due to political developments in the country.
However, the delegation from Togo appears poised to be inaugurated and thereafter the regional parliament will elect a new speaker, who will take the oath of office before the end of the extraordinary session which is scheduled to commence on the 21st of May, 2024.
The delegation from Togo is expected at the session 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.
Barau, as the first Deputy Speaker, is acting as the speaker of the parliament pending when the Togolese delegation is inaugurated.
Preparatory, to the Extraordinary Session, the Community Parliament had its Bureau meeting which was virtual and Conference of Bureau meeting thereafter which is made up Chairpersons and rapporteur of various committees.
They discussed the work 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 extraordinary session in Kano to bring the community closer to the grassroots for them to truly feel the impact of the community parliament..
Senator Barau who is 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."
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He added that tomorrow there 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 and 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.
"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".
