News:
Oghene Egoh
December 6, 2022
A member of Nigerian’s delegation to the Community Parliament, Oghene Egoh has said with the country report presented by Liberia and Sierra Leone over the weekend at plenary, there is the need to take a second look at the political situation there as both countries prepare for election next year.
According to him the Community Parliament should take up the issue in Liberia as the World Bank and other International agencies assessment has raised some alert ahead of their Presidential and Parliamentary elections next year; “so that we can send a delegation to go and see the Liberian president and other politicians there.
The danger, he stated is that when the unstable political situation gets worse, the military could take over and then ECOWAS Parliament will be short of one more country, so the issue should be looked at”.
Further in his contribution, he noted that, the Country report of Sierra Leone was okay, there is a major dispute as to representation and how the elections will be done, stating that if you speak to one or two of their delegation, they will tell you going into their election is unstable; there is no need to hide anything from each other in the Parliament.
“If we in Nigeria have discovered that there will not be free and fair elections, we will say it out, if we say it and ECOWAS intervenes it will help us. But if we know there is something that will create problem in the country and we say there is nothing and something happens we have lost two countries”.
Mr. Bamidele Salam in his remarks noted that conducting of census needs accurate data for the purpose of planning and development, but unfortunately most of the member states in the sub-region have issues of politics coming to interfere with the smooth running of national censuses.
As some of the issues identified ranges to corruption and inefficiencies and lack of political will of the political leaders to ensure that the process is conducted in a manner that will be seamless and this is worrying given the fact that development partners support these national census processes. He was contributing to the Country report presented by Liberia, and thanked the Liberia delegation for their candor display in this report.
He further, commended Liberia for passing a law that guarantees thirty percent for women in Parliament, and hopes other countries will learn from that.
On Sierra Leone, he expressed worry over the political situation there with regard to management of inter-party conflict reference to the August 10, 2022 protest and there was mention of panel of investigation to bring out measure to cub it and there has not been conclusion on that matter.
He queried about what is being done; how inclusive is the members of the opposition as they are getting close to the elections.
Leader of the Liberian delegation, Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe Jr. in his contribution raised concern about the political situation in Sierra Leone, stating that for the third time the military has to enter their Parliament House and brutalized MPs from the opposition party. He added that it is a serious situation and the ECOWAS Parliament must send a fact finding mission to Sierra Leone to investigate this serious issue, since it is neither the first nor second time, but the third time.
He further pointed out that less than a year to their election, they are still trying to change the electoral law, to work in the favour of the ruling establishment, indicating the situation is quite alarming and the delegation needs to speak to it.
On the issue of the August 10, 2022 demonstration, he pointed out that, he thinks the issue is being diluted. It was of great concern political and security situation and Sierra Leone delegation has five members to the Community Parliament.
One independent, two opposition, two ruling party, “we notice that none of the opposition party members are in here for the country report and I hope the delegation can tell us why they are not here whiles they are presenting their country report?”, he stated
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com