The Ad-hoc committee in charge of the
election of Members of the ECOWAS Parliament through direct universal suffrage
has presented recommendations to the Plenary for the consideration.
The Parliament seating for its Virtual 2020 Second Ordinary
Session held in 2021, received this recommendation in a report presented by the
Ad-hoc Committee which was signed by the Deputy Speaker of the Nigeria House of
Representative Rt. Hon. Idris Wase, who doubles as the 1st Deputy
speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, and chair of the Ad-hoc committee.
The report recalled that the Election of Members by direct
universal suffrage was part of the new mandate conferred on the Parliament by
the adoption of the Supplementary Act enhancing the powers of the Parliament,
and this has overtime been omitted.
Highlights of the recommendation includes that “Parliament
should endeavor to achieve the election of Members to the ECOWAS Parliament by
direct universal suffrage before the end of the 5th Legislature;
“Despite the operational challenges and financing, the study
on the election of Members should continue. Thematic meetings on specific areas
such as financing, an electoral code, code of good conduct and qualifications
for elections, should be organized as soon as possible.
“Key institutional stakeholders such as the Authority of
Heads of State, Council of Ministers, ECOWAS Commission and the Court of
Justice should be consulted on the mission of Parliament to elect its members
by direct universal suffrage”.
The committee further recommended that a prominent citizen of
the Community should be appointed Champion, to lead the advocacy on the
process.
Reacting to the recommendation given by the Ad-hoc committee
on the floor of Plenary, Hon. Diallo,
said “in regards to the selection of Member of Parliament, I look at the
recommendation and it said that MPs should be selected by Universal Adult
Suffrage, I think the problem going to arise is ensuring that in our states we
have a reliable system, I think the way it is happening is not one of the best
ways because not most of the MPs were elected by the people are the ones who
were selected for ECOWAS, there is a public vote that takes place based on
consensus, and I think that we should really think deeper on how to select
ECOWAS MPs, and am saying this is not the time to do it, we need to find a
better way of ensuring that in our sub region”.
Hon. Halidou Nassirou (Niger) also reacting said “for
Parliament to move to the state of Universal Adult Suffrage, we need a
transition. Parliament should copy the example of the European Union
Parliament, before they went for direct voting, there was a transition, that is
why I propose that this process should have a transition period. This presentation
does not make room for any transition, we cannot move from one system to the
other, there should be a transition even if we have to send a mission to the
European Union Parliament to see how they did it, we really have to do that to
get the modalities”.
Responding to concerns
raised, Hon. Clement Kofi Humado of Ghana said “Indeed I was a member of the
Ad-hoc Committee that deliberated in Lagos, I have listened to the concern of
my colleagues, I think part of the concerns arose because we jumped from the
introduction to the recommendations because the summary of presentation in the
discussion that we had dealt with all the concerns that was raised.
“We are saying that very many steps need to be undertaken
before we finally reach the point where a decision is firmly taken to implement
the program of universal adult suffrage;
“The report is not saying that as soon as we adopt this
report then the process starts. The transition period given is about four
years. It is just like how ECOWAS also have put in program for monetary union,
so when the target date is being approached and we see that we have not done
satisfactory effort, then the target can be changed again;
“I think that we need to start this process of considering
what should be involved for direct universal suffrage, we should work with three
or four years to see how far we have reached, then a final decision will be
taken”, Hon. Clement added.
The draft recommendation was received and adopted by the
Plenary for further deliberation at the forth coming Extra-Ordinary Session of
the Parliament.
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