TVC E, POLITICS – The ECOWAS Parliament on Friday elected Nigeria’s House of Representatives’ deputy speaker, Hon. Yusuf Lasun as one of its deputy speakers.
Other deputy speakers elected are from Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia and Cape Verde in line with the rules of procedures of the parliament.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the election was held during the inaugural session of the of the fourth legislature of the parliament in Abuja.
The election followed the end of the four-year mandate of the third legislature which ended in August 2015 in line with the provisions of the Supplementary Protocol relating to the Parliament.
The four deputy speakers are: Yusuf Lasun from Nigeria, First Deputy Speaker; Aminata Toungare from Cote d’Ivoire, Second Deputy Speaker.
Others are Jefferson Kanmoh from Liberia third Deputy Speaker while Orlando Pereira Dias from Cape Verde emerged as the Fourth Deputy Speaker.
Addressing newsmen, Nigeria’s house of representatives deputy speaker and one of the newly elected ECOWAS deputy speakers, Lasun promised to bring his wealth of experience in Nigeria’s National Assembly into the ECOWAS Parliament.
“The Nigerian National Assembly is well developed and from my experience, I have come to the conclusion that the Nigerian Parliament is one of the most developed in the world.
“Anyone going from the Nigerian parliament to an international parliament has a lot of impact to make; we know the rules and we know what the parliament seeks to achieve in democracy.
“My own area of specialisation is to make sure that whatever benefits we can get for this parliament is taken back to the Nigerian parliament and impact positively on Nigeria as a country,” he said.
Lasun assured that the new legislature would ensure that the Supplementary Draft Act of the enhancement of powers of the parliament was signed into law.
“As at today the parliament of ECOWAS does not have legislative powers yet and when that exists, it becomes difficult to actually impact positively on the community.
“What we are going to do in the next four years is to make sure that this parliament has legislative powers.
“This is so that we can properly oversight our region because one of the most important functions of a parliament is the oversight functions.”
The ECOWAS Parliament is currently a non-legislative assembly which issues advisory opinion to the Authority of Heads of State and Government and the Council of Ministers.
