There was outrage across Nigeria, Thursday, March 11, when Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Idris Wase rejected a petition filed by an association of Nigerians living outside the country, on the grounds that Nigerians living abroad cannot complain about the events happening in Nigeria. The Deputy Speaker also questioned whether the association was registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria. In their petition presented by Hon. Mark Terseer Gbillah, the Mutual Union of the Tiv in America (Mzough U Tiv Amerika) is accusing the Nigerian Federal Government of turning a blind eye to the expropriation of their land by Fulani herdsmen, their displacement from their ancestral homes and constant attacks on them by the said herdsmen. Ruling the petition out of order, the Deputy Speaker questioned the rights of Nigerians living abroad to file complaints for consideration by the Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives. Under the rules of the House, Nigerians aggrieved by government action or inaction could request intervention to remedy a wrong committed against them. The House Committee on Public Petitions has developed an ability to intervene as an administrative recourse mechanism. The Committee has over time, provided an inexpensive way of addressing several administrative wrongs and complaints by citizens who have found it to be expedient to use the Committee for the purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigerians have reacted to the development,\ninsisting that Nigerians, regardless of their place of residence, have a right\nto speak on issues pertaining to the nation. In addition, Wase\u2019s action is a\ncontradiction of the government\u2019s purported efforts to create an inclusive atmosphere\nfor Nigerians in diaspora. In reaction to this development, the community of\nNigerians in Diaspora have written to the leadership of the House of\nRepresentatives demanding an apology, and clarification of the National\nAssembly\u2019s position on the relationship between the Nigerian government and\nNigerians in diaspora, failure of which will result in withholding further\ndiaspora remittances into Nigeria, among other actions. It will be recalled\nthat the Central Bank of Nigeria recently introduced an initiative to encourage\ninternational money transfers into Nigeria, from Nigerians living abroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Nigerian Constitution very clearly allows\nfor freedom association for Nigerians, anywhere and it would appear that the\nDeputy Speaker overlooked this. The Constitution allows for any group of\npersons to associate and work together without need for registration under the\nCompanies and Allied Matters Act. This is what the Tiv group in the United States\nhave done. It is hoped that the matter would be revisited and that the obvious\ntravesty of justice would be addressed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was outrage across Nigeria, Thursday, March 11, when Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Idris Wase rejected a petition filed by an association of Nigerians living outside the country, on the grounds that Nigerians living abroad cannot complain about the events happening in Nigeria. The Deputy Speaker also questioned whether the association […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[266,267,269,268],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-furore-over-deputy-speakers-interference-with-diaspora-petition","tag-hon-mark-terseer-gbillah","tag-hon-wase","tag-mutual-union-of-the-tiv-in-america-mzough-u-tiv-amerika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}