By Christiana Ekpa
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, Ph.D, has called for more collaborations and engagements between the Nigerian National Assembly and the German Parliament also known as The Bundestag.
Speaker Abbas also urged Germany to emulate the United Kingdom in the advancement and sustenance of democracy in Nigeria.
The Speaker made the call in Abuja on Tuesday when the German Ambassador to Nigeria, Annett Günther, paid a courtesy call at his office.
Ambassador Günther was accompanied by the Head of Political, Matthias Dold, and the Political Officer, Uduak-Abasi Akpabio, on the visit.
Speaker Abbas said: “I want to appreciate the long-standing and historical relationship between Nigeria and Germany, which spans more than 60 years. To the best of my knowledge, it has been a mutually beneficial relationship. Both the German and Nigerian governments have benefitted immensely from the relationship. I am proud to say that in Africa today, we are one of the major partners of Germany in diplomatic relationship.
“We believe this can be further exploited in the future, and there are so many other areas that we can look into, to deepen our relationship with you. In due course, we will highlight some of those areas of economic advantage to both Germany and Nigeria.
“We want to see more and increased collaboration in the area of cultural ties between Germany and Nigeria. I know we are doing fairly well in that respect, but there are so many areas that we are yet to touch.
“One area of major concern to us is further collaboration in what we do here, that is legislative collaboration between the parliaments of Germany and Nigeria. We want to see in the next coming years, particularly under this administration, how we can further strengthen collaboration and relationship between the parliaments of Germany and Nigeria,” Speaker Abbas said.
The Speaker therefore stressed on the possibilities of strengthening legislative relationship between Nigeria and Germany “in a similar way like the United Kingdom has been offering us by way of technical assistance.”
Speaker Abbas also disclosed that the House had concluded work on the formation of 40 international friendship groups “out of which Germany is one of the key countries,” which would have members of the Nigerian Legislature engaging with their counterparts in Germany and other countries.
While also addressing another issue raised by Ambassador Günther on women in governance and politics, Speaker Abbas noted that more members of the House were now interested in enabling more women in the parliament.
“We are very hopeful that this time around, the Constitution review we are going to embark on before the end of the year will significantly increase the number of women in parliament,” he said.
Speaker Abbas noted that apart from the existing House Committee on Women Affairs, the 9th House created the Committee on Women in Parliament as part of efforts towards empowering women to become lawmakers. He, therefore, disclosed that the list of committees, as well as their chairmanship and membership would be released on Thursday.
Earlier in her remarks, Ambassador Günther noted that the visit was to “lay a new foundation” for the partnership between Germany and Nigeria, especially with the recent change of government in the West African country.
The Ambassador also noted that the relationship between the two countries dates back to the early days of Nigeria’s independence, stressing that “there is a lot of economic cooperation” between them.
Ambassador Günther also noted that beyond bilateral relations, Germany has provided humanitarian assistance to Nigeria, especially concerning the security crises in the North-East and the North-West of the country.
