National News

Lawmakers at ECOWAS Parliament Still in Fight Over Employment of Staff

Published

4 years ago

October 9, 2022

Ochuwa Ibrahim

Lawmakers at ECOWAS Parliament Still in Fight Over Employment of Staff

By Michael Mike

The controversy surrounding the recent employment by the Economic Committee of West African States (ECOWAS) is not over yet as lawmakers at it’s parliament have rejected a motion to present the outcome of the Ad-hoc committee setup to review allegations of nepotism in the exercise.

The lawmakers registered their protestation against the committee headed by Nigerian Senator Ali Ndume, at the plenary session of the 2nd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament, in Lome, Togo while alleging that the Speaker of Parliament, Sidie Mohamed Tunis constituted the review committee without recourse to parliament.

The lawmakers noted that it was against the rules of parliament for the recruitment exercise to have gone ahead after it was voted to be suspended in the last parliamentary session when allegations of favouritism were raised.

Hon Awaji-Inombek Abiante who moved a point of order said that the report of the Ad-hoc Committee as set up by the Bureau was given the mandate to work without recourse to its adoption by the Plenary as such was illegal in its entirety.

This position was supported by Nigeria’s Senator Smart Adeyemi, who drew the Speaker’s attention to the adverse implication of the exercise.

Adeyemi said, “when actions are taken that are not in conformity with the spirit and the content of the documents that are supposed to guide us I think Mr. Speaker let us accept that something was done wrong. We should be courageous to say that, but for you to say that you prefer the decision that was not in conformity with the law, as an infringement to the modalities of the Parliament, in fact, the contrary is the case, if we go ahead to accept what is not properly done then the integrity of Parliament itself will be questioned.

“It means that as we are here, somebody can take a decision on our behalf without consulting us. Mr. Speaker with due respect to your position, I personally like you, I respect you, but this decision is not in intent and spirit of the document before us.”

Another lawmaker, Hon. Samson Ahi from Ghana argued that the formation of the Ad-hoc Committee was against the rules of parliament.

He said. “I just want to find out from you Mr. Speaker, are you saying that with the consultation of the Bureau you constituted an Ad-hoc Committee and after that, you gave them a mandate to work without the approval of the entire house, is that what you are saying?

“My understanding is that you can constitute the committee, alright, but it is subject to the approval by the entire members before they can legally work. If you and your Bureau can constitute a committee and they start working without recourse to members before you present your report, then I think there is something wrong with what you have done.”

Also, Nigeria’s Hon. Abdullahi Kamba noted that the Bureau has no right or powers to take the decision and that they should have reverted back to Plenary to form an Ad-hoc committee.

He said: “Not them as the Bureau forming the Committee, it is wrong, and for that matter, I hope that whatever report the Ad-hoc committee has should not be read here, we should form the committee today so that they can start work.”

Responding to the backlash, the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Senator, Ali Ndume said “I am standing here because of the Ad-hoc committee that was formed and vested with powers to investigate on the matters raised by our high Commissioner from Nigeria and also the First Deputy Speaker on the purported irregularities in recruitment which was suspended.

“Our mandate as at that time and now did not lift the ban for the suspension that was the decision that was taken at the Plenary.

“On behalf of the other colleagues that undertook this Ad-hoc job, we didn’t look for the job. In fact in my own case I was in my local government because we were on recess and I was mourning my father; then the Speaker called me to say that there is an issue that came up that is eating the system which was true as at that time and that he needed some members as a committee to immediately look into the matter and report. “

He added that: “We have a mission but now I am embarrassed by the observation of abnormalities. I am not looking for this job and I am sure our other colleagues are not looking for this job. I am also sure that even if a new committee has to be formed it has to be members of this ECOWAS, and I don’t think they are looking for the job either and I don’t think any of us cannot do this job.

“I was thinking that members will hear me out or hear the committee or even adopt if there is abnormality because I know the situations where normally if the head of the institution takes a decision that decision is not questioned, but it looked into with the view of ratifying it.”

Ndume said: “Distinguish colleagues, I don’t want it to put my personal interest but because of the interest of the workers, if not I will not present the report, I will not continue with illegality, you have to decide.”

The Speaker of Parliament, Tunis moved that the recruitment process be suspended indefinitely, a decision which seems to have infuriated Senator Edwin Snowe from Liberia who walked out of the plenary in protest of the deferment.

Shortly after the session, at a press conference, the Speaker of ECOWAS parliament accused lawmakers in the parliament of mischief and a deliberate misrepresentation of facts in order to garner the sympathy of constituents.

He said: “You will recall that in the last session in Abuja, Honourable Members raised the issue of recruitment in the ECOWAS Parliament, in fact the impression at that time was that there were a lot of malpractices regarding the recruitment exercises.

“When I got the information, I decided to set up an independent Ad-hoc Committee, headed by a very senior senator from Nigeria, Ali Ndume, to look at the whole situation and to determine whether in fact Nigerians were marginalized, and whether the process was transparent in line with our Supplementary Act in the staff regulations, and any other issues that may arise from their investigations.”

“They submitted their report to me and I called a Bureau meeting. We looked at the report, we adopted it by law and based on the fact that the committee found out that there was nothing wrong in the recruitment exercises, we decided to go ahead to discuss it, to now consider the Advisory Committee Report. The Advisory Committee is provided for in our Staff Regulations, their responsibility is more or less to look at shortlisting and interviews for staff members. The composition of that particular committee is clearly indicated in our Staff Regulations and how to determine who will be a member is already stated in the Staff Regulations. So it’s just a question of looking at the positions, like if they said the Director of Finance is a member, you look at the Parliament who is the Director of Administration you put the person there. It’s all clear in the Staff Regulations.

“By law and in line with the Supplementary Act we have done our part, but of course because the issue of recruitment initially came up from the Plenary I decided that the Chairman should also report to the Plenary for information purposes only, because the Law does not in any way require Plenary to deal with recruitment issues.

“If you look at the recruitment issues, a reference is made to the head of the institution, which is me, I am the Speaker. I am wearing two hats, one as the Head of Institution and the other as Speaker. So as Head of Institutions I can take decisions with regards to that, but then, I can say because colleagues in the Plenary actually raised the issue I needed to be very clear in my mind and to the public, that in fact the process was transparent and it was all done in line with the Law.

“What I am about to tell you especially for our Colleagues in Nigeria, because this is were there was a huge publicity about malpractices in the ECOWAS Parliament, I want the public to know that the Senator Ali Ndume report which will be given to you clearly exonerated the Parliament that from G to P4 Recruitment as ongoing at the ECOWAS Parliament is transparent and in line with the Staff Regulations and the Supplementary Act, that is very important I want the public especially our Nigerian Public to know, that there we no malpractices. Number two, that Nigerians were not marginalized at all in the whole process.

“As a matter of fact, out of ten positions from the report now that has been submitted to us by the Advisory Committee, 5 of them went to Nigeria, 1 to Sierra Leone, 1 to Senegal, 1 to Guinea Bissau, 1 to Niger and 1 to Ghana, and it also important and very important to inform the general public that 70% of this new recruitment came from the internal staff, that means people who have already been serving the ECOWAS Parliament,” the Speaker explained.

The speaker equally alleged that another reason for the row in parliament was because lawmakers are protesting a new administrative rule that takes away the prerogative to buy air tickets from lawmakers themselves and vested it in administration.

He noted that: “When I came to Parliament in 2018, we used to buy our own tickets then the Parliament would refund. They gave us a threshold for a return ticket, then in 2019, that is before I took over as Speaker, that changed completely because of an audit report which I don’t know the details of because by then I was not the Speaker.

“From then, tickets for MPs were not going to be bought by the MPs. When I took over in 2020 that’s what I inherited, but then in the last two years I have been Speaker there has always been agitations from Honourable Members that we should go back to what was obtained in 2018, or before I joined Parliament that MPs should be buying their own tickets.

“I have been resisting it for some time and resisting because I am one person that always believes in what the rule says.

“The reason why I had decided to encourage the idea of MPs buying their own tickets is because I looked at the budget circular, but then from the figures I saw the Parliament was spending more on tickets for MPs, and we were talking about cutting down cost.

“It will only be proper for me to toe the line of MPs for me to say let us try again this idea of buying our own tickets and see what will come out of it. But I must make it very clear, these are not just proposals, the law as it stands right now, is that Parliament was supposed to buy it.

Lawmakers at ECOWAS Parliament Still in Fight Over Employment of Staff

National News

AT 3RD AFRICA MINERALS STRATEGY GROUP HIGH-LEVEL ROUNDTABLE

Published

4 days ago

September 22, 2026

Ochuwa Ibrahim

AT 3RD AFRICA MINERALS STRATEGY GROUP HIGH-LEVEL ROUNDTABLE

President Tinubu Rallies Aggressive Alliance To Guard Africa’s Mineral Wealth

** *Charges continent to stop exporting wealth, start profiting from its own resources

** *Says Africa’s future being fashioned from minerals must have room for continent’s ambition

By: Our Reporter

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for a fresh continental push to end the historical exploitation of Africa’s critical mineral resources, urging African nations to unite and halt the export of raw materials.

Accordingly, he demanded an aggressive alliance among African countries to ensure the continent transitions from a mere supplier of raw minerals to a hub for local processing, manufacturing, and value addition.

The Nigerian leader made the call on Monday in New York, United States, during the AMSG High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa held on the sidelines of the ongoing 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Convened and chaired by President Tinubu, his deputy, Vice President Kashim Shettima, alongside AMSG Chairman and Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Dele Alake, the high-level dialogue, themed, “From Resources to Wealth: Continental Cooperation for Mineral Value Addition, Data Sovereignty, Innovative Financing and Critical Minerals Security,” focuses on transforming the continent’s mineral wealth into sustainable economic growth.

In his address delivered by Senator Shettima at the Roundtable, the President told African leaders and other stakeholders that the continent cannot claim to be wealthy while its children wallow in poverty amid mines that enrich the world.

“For generations, Africa has furnished the materials of prosperity elsewhere. Our duty is to ensure that the future being fashioned from African minerals has room for African ambition,” he declared.

President Tinubu regretted that mineral-rich communities lack infrastructure, jobs, and a stake in their own wealth at a time when global demand for clean energy, AI, and advanced manufacturing has made Africa’s critical minerals—like cobalt, copper, lithium, and rare earth elements—indispensable to global supply chains and economic security.

The answer to such deprivation, he observed, “must be processing, refining, batteries, components, African technologies and competitive skills,” noting that “the worth of a mine must be counted in the lives it improves.

“Jobs, industries, infrastructure, technology transfer, African enterprise participation and prosperity retained across generations must measure our progress from resources to wealth,” he maintained.

The Nigerian leader warned, however, that no African country can achieve this alone, adding that competing through lower royalties, weaker local content, and excessive concessions will only weaken the continent’s negotiating power.

“Fragmentation leaves us exporting raw materials and buying finished goods at a premium. Cooperation gives our markets scale, our industries integration, our financing reach and our negotiations authority,” he said.

Back home, the President noted that Nigeria must require local value addition for new mining licenses, strengthen geological data and investor access, organize artisanal miners into cooperatives, combat illegal mining, and improve regulatory accountability

“Revenue rose from approximately ₦6 billion in 2023 to over ₦38 billion in 2024 and between ₦68.1 billion and ₦70 billion in 2025. Major foreign investment commitments and large-scale lithium processing capacity developed and commissioned in Nasarawa State demonstrate the possibilities,” he added.

He drew attention to his administration’s mining policy direction, which stipulates that minerals extracted in Nigeria must sustain Nigerian industries, workers, skills, and communities, saying ongoing reforms indicate that “firm terms can attract serious capital.”

Offering other African nations the Nigerian experience for adaptation across the continent, President Tinubu called for “reliable partnerships grounded in mutual benefit, shared responsibility, sovereign equality and respect for our priorities, with fair market access, industrial investment and technology partnerships that build African capabilities.”

He implored member countries of the AMSG to speak with one voice to promote Africa’s collective interest, insisting that reliability must never mean dependency, and partnership must never demand inequality.

On the Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration adopted and signed at the Roundtable, the President said it must establish a predictable, investment-ready environment for Africa’s Strategic Mineral Corridors, harmonised policies, responsible investment and shared infrastructure.

He stated that the Declaration’s authority must survive the signing ceremony through a binding programme with timelines, financing, implementation and public accountability, even as he urged African nations to specify national and regional contributions; development finance institutions and sovereign investors to propose financing platforms.

Declaring the Roundtable open, the Nigerian leader spearheaded an aggressive alliance to retain the continent’s mineral wealth, saying, “Africa’s power resides in its people, markets and ingenuity. No outsider will organise our continent or place our industrial interests above their own. We must integrate our markets, mobilise African capital and negotiate with one voice wherever our interests converge.

“Our industrial growth can strengthen global prosperity, the energy transition and secure supply chains. Minerals confer no automatic prosperity; vision, investment and industry must earn it. Political will must turn mineral promise into enduring African wealth.”

Earlier, Chairman of the AMSG and Nigeria’s Minister of Minister of Solid Minerals, Mr. Dele Alake, said the group is proposing a Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration (CIEAD) as a landmark continental framework designed to establish a unified architecture for Africa’s critical and solid minerals value chains.

He said the strength of the gathering reflected the journey and progress made in Africa’s solid minerals sector as manifested in the growth of the Africa Minerals Stategy Group (AMSG).

Alake urged African countries that have yet to join the group to do so in the bid to ensure synergy of efforts, ideas and resources needed for Africa’s natural resources.

He observed that Africa’s minerals ambitions cannot be realised by policy implementation alone as fully integrated partnership designed across financial transactions and infrastructure development as the way forward.

On his part, Kenya’s Minister of Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs, Mr. Hassan Ali Joho, underscored the importance of domestic resource mobilisation as a catalyst for solid mineral development in Africa and beyond.

He added that for members of the AMSG to achieve holistic transformation, members must stay transparent, competitive and work towards greater alignment of licensing procedure while respecting the sovereignty of member states of the group.

There were also contributions from representatives of the governments of Liberia, Chad and Tanzania, among other stakeholders.

AT 3RD AFRICA MINERALS STRATEGY GROUP HIGH-LEVEL ROUNDTABLE

National News

ECOWAS Court Turns to Media as Enforcement Gap Threatens Impact of Regional Justice

Published

4 days ago

September 22, 2026

Ochuwa Ibrahim

ECOWAS Court Turns to Media as Enforcement Gap Threatens Impact of Regional Justice

…Abuja workshop seeks to strengthen judicial reporting and public accountability over Member States’ compliance with court decisions

By: Michael Mike

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice is seeking to strengthen the role of journalists in holding Member States accountable for implementing its judgments, as concerns persist over the enforcement of decisions issued by the regional judicial institution.

The President of the Court, Hon. Justice Ricardo Claudio Monteiro Gonçalves, made the call at the opening of a three-day training workshop for journalists from ECOWAS Member States, urging participants to use their media platforms to draw attention to governments’ obligations under regional treaties.

He said the Court’s existing enforcement mechanism places responsibility for executing its judgments on Member States, but described the level of compliance as below expectation.

“Let me also urge you to use your media platforms to engage Member States on the need to faithfully implement the decisions of the Court in accordance with their treaty obligations,” Gonçalves said.

His remarks placed the spotlight on a central challenge facing regional justice: ensuring that judicial decisions translate into practical outcomes for individuals and communities.

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice serves as a regional judicial institution within the Economic Community of West African States, with jurisdiction that includes human rights cases involving Member States.

Its judgments can address allegations of human rights violations and provide remedies to applicants. However, enforcement depends on mechanisms involving national authorities rather than the Court independently executing its own decisions.

Under Article 24 of the Court’s Supplementary Protocol, judgments are enforced through a writ of execution submitted by the Chief Registrar to the relevant Member State, where execution proceeds according to domestic civil procedure rules.

The Court has also explained in its jurisprudence that Member States have obligations to comply with its judgments, while its own authority to directly enforce those decisions is limited.

This arrangement makes cooperation between the regional institution and national authorities an important part of the enforcement process. Differences in domestic procedures, institutional capacity and the implementation of regional legal instruments can affect how judgments are carried out.

The Court has identified enforcement as an area requiring stronger coordination with national institutions. In 2026, it held bilateral engagements with national authorities in countries including Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria to discuss compliance, institutional cooperation and practical enforcement challenges.

These engagements form part of broader efforts to improve the implementation of decisions across the region.

Gonçalves said limited public understanding of the Court’s mandate, procedures, jurisdiction and judgments was partly linked to gaps in media coverage.

He stressed that journalists need a sound understanding of the institution’s composition, structure and legal responsibilities to communicate its work accurately.

The president said the workshop was designed to improve judicial reporting and establish a network of journalists across the ECOWAS region who would report regularly on the Court’s activities.

“This training is, therefore, very important for the Community Court of Justice,” he said.

He expressed confidence that contributions from the Court’s Registry and Research Departments, alongside technical experts in journalism and judicial reporting, would help achieve the initiative’s objectives.

The workshop is expected to strengthen participants’ ability to explain court proceedings, interpret judgments and communicate the implications of regional judicial decisions to the public.

The media training comes amid continuing institutional efforts to improve compliance with ECOWAS Court judgments through closer engagement with national enforcement authorities.

In February 2026, the Court convened a meeting with Nigerian authorities on the status of enforcement of its decisions. Similar engagements in Sierra Leone and Guinea focused on cooperation, identifying implementation challenges and strengthening coordination between the Court and national institutions.

A further regional meeting of Competent National Authorities was scheduled in Cotonou, Benin, in June 2026, as part of efforts to develop a collaborative framework for enforcement.

The initiatives reflect the importance of national institutions in carrying out regional judgments and the need for more consistent procedures across jurisdictions.

Against this background, the Court’s engagement with journalists introduces a public communication dimension to its compliance efforts, encouraging media professionals to explain the obligations arising from judgments and report on implementation.

The training brought together journalists drawn primarily from national broadcast media organisations across 12 ECOWAS Member States.

The participating countries are Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, The Gambia, Togo and Nigeria.

The initiative forms part of the Court’s Annual Cascade Workplan and is aligned with its Strategic Plan 2026–2030.

In particular, it supports Strategic Goal 4, which focuses on transparency, stakeholder engagement and strategic accountability, as well as Strategic Objective 4.2, which seeks to strengthen platforms for regular engagement with stakeholders.

Through the training, the Court aims to expand public awareness of its work and encourage sustained reporting on its judgments and activities.

For the participating journalists, the task extends beyond covering courtroom proceedings to explaining what decisions mean, which institutions are responsible for implementation and what progress is being made in giving effect to the Court’s rulings.