Parliament must respect member state resources – Wase tells plenary

By Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja

The Deputy Speaker of the Nigerian house of Representatives Hon. Idris Wase,  who doubles as the first Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament bemoan irrelevant expenses incurred by Parliament and called for respect of countries resources by curtailing these expenses.

Hon. Wase had insisted that the ongoing Extraordinary Session of the Parliament be brought to an abrupt end on Wednesday, saying that the evaluation of the activities of the outgoing 4th Legislature, which according to him, formed the basis for the Extraordinary Session, had already been concluded.

Kicking against the motion, the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Moustapha Cissé-Lo has asked Members Of Parliament who wish to go home from the The Gambia, venue of the ongoing Extraordinary Session, to do so after most members of parliament learnt their voices to Wase’s motion which resulted to a pandemonium.

This resulted into a heated debate as other members sided with the Speaker, pointing out that some items in the program of event, were yet to be carried out.

They urged the parliamentarians to stick with the initial agenda set for session rather than altering them.

At this point, Hon. Wase, flared up, accusing Speaker Cissé-Lo of going against what had been agreed upon at the Bureau level the previous night.

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“Mr Speaker, we need to respect ourselves on the manner with which we go about this. You are talking as if we are dragging this because we want to just leave. Let’s go through the agenda. My country’s resources and other country’s resources are being used for this program. I believe at the bureau, we had the opportunity to sit down and analyse and take a decision before coming to plenary. I am a deputy speaker of my own country’s Parliament, I know how things are done.

“When I met you with this suggestion yesterday, all of you agreed we should bring it up here today; only for you to come now and talk as if there was no agreement. Is that the way things are done? You don’t run parliament on this manner!

“All those who are now supporting you were part of those who agreed to this position yesterday. Is it because we want to take money that we designed the program? This is public funds! You must design things in such a way that you justify public funding!

As the back and forth continued for almost an hour, Speaker Cissé-Lo moved that Parliament go into a closed Door session and resolve the issue.

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Emerging from the closed door, the Speaker urged members with contentions about going through with all the activities initially lined up for the 7day period slated for the Extraordinary  Session, to go home if they so choose.

He thereafter beckoned on the Secretary General,  John Azumah, who read out the outline the program of event to the parliamentarians.

The Extraordinary Session comes to an end on Friday, the 31st of January, 2020 as was earlier scheduled.