Many Nigerians were horrified the other day, when a ranking member of the House of Representatives and Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase manifested utter ignorance of the provisions in the Rule Book of the National Assembly and the contribution of the Diaspora Nigerians to the economic wellbeing of the country.
Wase’s outing while chairing the proceeding of the day in the absence of Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker, clearly exposed the country as a place where anything goes and where people in authority allow their parochial interest becloud their sense of reasoning.
The deputy’s speaker’s body language and his persistent interrogation and pummeling of Mark Gbillah, a member of the House of Representatives, representing Gwer East-Gwer West Constituency of Benue State, asking him to stand down a petition he was presenting on the floor of the lower chamber on behalf of Tivs in Diaspora, gave him away as someone pursuing a negative agenda in the House, using his privilege position.
Gbillah had been recognised by the day’s acting speaker to speak. The lawmaker had introduced the reason for seeking permission- to present a petition from Tivs in the Diaspora over the ancestral land of Tiv Nation and the general plight of the people, which they noted was waxing worse in the recent times.
Gbillah was representing the Mutual Union of Tivs in America (MUTA), concerned citizens in the said petition, who sought to register their protest about the maltreatment, utter neglect and the wanton violation of the fundamental human rights of their people back home in Nigeria who as a result of the attack on their homeland and farmlands by herdsmen have been rendered homeless in the past few years and are now stranded in refugee camps in the Middle Belt. Members of MUTA want their people’s plight to be addressed by the Nigerian government and their seized lands returned to them.
Then Wase interjected, wondering why Gbillah would dare bring an outlandish matter, as it were, to the floor of the House.
“Do they really know what is going on if they are in America? Do they have dual citizenship?” Wase asked, rather arrogantly. He eventually asked Gbilah to be so advised and sit down.
Even if it were a case of dual citizenship, there is nothing in the nation’s laws that prevents those in the Diaspora from participating in the issues of their country. In fact, the Nigerian Constitution allows dual citizenship, and Wase claimed pretended he did not know.
When he appeared on a television programme on the issue at hand, Gbillah said his privilege had been breached; the privileges of Tiv people and their compatriots in the diaspora had been breached. He said he would be re-submitting the petition in a matter of days.
He wondered why the Federal Government has reneged on the promise it made through the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, that N10billion had been voted for the resettlement of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Benue State.
Gbillah said the President did not need to be cajoled to fulfil the promises made by his administration. He also wondered why the IDPs in the North, particularly in Borno State, are receiving Federal Government’s attention than those in other places, Benue inclusive.
“NEMA(National Emergency Management Agency) intervenes ceaselessly to the plight of IDPs in Borno or other places in the North. It does not show the spirit of oneness that we preach.The plight of our people who are unable to go back to their ancestral homes is of concern to us.
“Let us not wait until the IDPs situation becomes something else before we begin to run from pillar to post,” he said.
Gbillah had asked for an unreserved apology from Wase, for himself, TIV nation and his people in the Diaspora, but Wase said he would not do such a thing, insisting he was not being mischievous in his dealings with the Benue State lawmaker on the floor of the house.
Some Diaspora Nigerians have threatened to withhold their remittances. They are waiting for the Deputy Speaker to apologise.
The question on the lips of many Nigerians, is, does Wase indeed know the contributions of Diaspora Nigerians to the nation’s economy? He must have been reading from different page from President Buhari.
Recently, Buhari had affirmed the growing importance of diaspora remittances to the growth and development of Nigeria’s economy based on 2019 figures released by the World Bank.
In the affirmation, the President had said: “$25 billion annual remittance by Nigerians in the diaspora was more than 80percent of the country’s annual budget and formed about 6percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”.
Idris Wase had explained that his decision to prevent Gbilah from laying the petition “was strictly based on rules of parliamentary procedures”.
He said that his reason “…was on the legal identity (and flowing from that, the Locus) of the petitioners and not on whether Nigerians in diaspora have a right to petition the House or not.”
According to him, “The House of Representatives belongs to all Nigerians and can be accessed by all Nigerians wherever they may reside. However, like other arms of Government, (such as Courts of Law), Petitioners must follow laid down rules and procedures in presenting their petitions to the House, otherwise there would be lawlessness, disorder and chaos.”
Despite his explanations, his demeanour towards Gbillah and his presentation fell far below a high level of decorum expected of him as a ranking lawmaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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