Concurrent Roles: 40 Nigerian Lawmakers at Risk of Losing Seats Over NASS, ECOWAS Membership

The body took action after the call was ignored, serving a pre-action notice to the Senate President and the Clerk of the National Assembly.

The notice, dated April 8 and signed by Dr Tonye Clinton Jaja, the Secretary of the body, warned that if the Senate President did not comply with their request within seven working days, they would pursue legal action to seek clarification from a court of law.

As an alternative, the body proposed drafting two bills to domesticate the international instruments that establish both the ECOWAS Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament.

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They argued that the current practice of serving in both bodies violates the 1999 Constitution’s Section 68(1) and Article 18 of the Supplementary Act of the ECOWAS Parliament from 2017, which prohibits members from serving in multiple parliaments and receiving emoluments.

ALDRAP, the group filing the lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeks the court’s determination on whether a member of the National Assembly can simultaneously hold a seat in the ECOWAS Parliament and/or the Pan-African Parliament without resigning from the National Assembly, based on Section 68(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

Additionally, they question whether the provisions of the ECOWAS Parliament legislation, which allocates 35 seats to Nigeria, have become legally operative within the country under Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), considering that neither the National Assembly nor the state Houses of Assembly have subjected the parliament to the prescribed legislative procedure.

The body requests the court to declare that the Clerk of the National Assembly should immediately cease the payment of salaries and all forms of remuneration to the 40 lawmakers who were recently inaugurated as members of either the 6th Assembly of the ECOWAS Parliament or the Pan-African Parliament.