The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says it chose Kano for its second extraordinary parliamentary session because of its strategic location as the commercial nerve centre of the Northern Nigeria and West Africa.
Sen. Barau Jibrin, the Acting Speaker of the Parliament and the Deputy Senate President, stated this when he spoke with newsmen on Monday in Kano.
Jibrin said that the sixth legislature of the parliament would commence on Tuesday in Kano, saying that the parliament had 115 seats out of which each member state was guaranteed a minimum of five seats.
He said that the session was crucial to establish the framework for the new legislature’s operations.
“The entire assembly will be in Kano as important and open ended issues 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,” he said.
Jibrin added: “That it’s the first time that you have this kind of meetings and sessions of ECOWAS parliaments taking place in Kano.
“It is s in line with what we’ve said, we are here so that Kano will know ECOWAS parliaments and ECOWAS parliaments will know Kano.”
Jibrin also stated that the Togo which had yet to participate in the parliament was expected to attend the session.
“You know there was no election of the parliament’s representatives in Togo, but now that elections have been held, we expect them to join us at the parliament where they would be sworn in,” he added.(NAN)
