Janet Samuel, Abuja
The Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS Parliament Communication Division (Community Parliament) has said that the People’s Parliament is working with Nigerian authorities to resume normal operations after the temporary closure of the Abuja International Conference Centre (ICC) impacted the Parliament’s work environment.
A Statement by the subregional body revealed that the People’s Parliament shares some services with the ICC, including electricity and office space, which made the closure and recent power issues to have disrupted the activities on the Parliament.
“The Parliament maintains some shared services with the Abuja ICC such as electricity supply and some leased office spaces which serve as annexes to the Parliament,”
The statement said, “Nonetheless, the recent erratic general state of affairs in power supply has caused the Parliament to experience power disruptions during work hours, owing to the absence of the ICC power generator personnel engaged to man the service.”
“The Parliament is confident that the measures are temporary and intended to facilitate renovations at the ICC.
“Discussions are ongoing with our host, with a view to ensure that its operations are smooth, with the least possible interruption,” the press release
The ECOWAS Parliament is the House of representative of the peoples of the Community. It has 115 seats. Each Member State is guaranteed a minimum of allotted five seats. The remaining forty seats are distributed in proportion to the population of each country. Consequently, Nigeria has a total of 35 seats followed by Ghana with eight seats. Côte d’Ivoire is allotted seven seats, whereas Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal have six seats respectively. The remaining ECOWAS Member States, namely Benin, Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo, have allotted to each of them, five seats.
