THE POWER OF ECOWAS PARLIAMENT

Part Two
The argument on how the members of ECOWAS parliament should be getting their mandates is divided along two schools of thoughts and unfortunately, the 1994 treaty establishing the parliament accommodated both approaches. It is important to appreciate the fact that the treaty is however more in favours of the “Direct Universal Suffrage” of the citizens of respective member states then it does with the current “indirect voting system”. So instead of having the majority masses of the ECOWAS community playing their active part for the parliament to work in their favour, the politically active elite minority are those taking advantage of the whole scheme.

Those that support the ECOWAS parliamentarians by indirect voting of the citizens of ECOWAS through the members of parliaments of the 15 member states are mainly the minority conservative elite politicians. This faction bases their argument mainly on cost and personality quality. To these people, the cost in money of arriving at who represent the people of ECOWAS at the Parliament in Abuja is more important than the right of the citizens of ECOWAS to vote directly for who represent them. They posited that it will be very expensive to organize or run a separate election by the national electoral commission (EC) of Ghana as these could mean another separate cost, so having the same people already voted to represent their parties and constituencies in parliament to go to the ECOWAS parliament mean avoiding another expensive election and relieving the tax payers from the burden of spending on more people to represent him/her. To these people, spending some extra amount on the already elected members of parliament is cheaper as the elected individuals are already being paid as members of their national parliaments anyway. They further their argument that it is a mere waste of scarce foreign exchange in terms of salaries, accommodation and transportation for the extra eight (8) parliamentarians to Abuja, Nigeria whose sole purpose is to make laws at ECOWAS level when the Parliamentarians in Ghana are making the same laws for Ghanaians. They are also of the view that allowing members of Ghanaian parliament to choose these individuals after being elected from their various constituencies means double vetting to arrive at the right representation in terms of character and quality.

These people strongly believed that choosing individual parliamentarians from the member states parliament who are already part and parcel of the law making processes in their respective member states mean most of the laws the ECOWAS parliament will be arriving at will not be in conflict with that of the member states laws as the laws are being made basically by the same people. Thus choosing parliamentarians from their national parliament will be fostering strong tie between the two institutions and avoiding legal conflicts. To this school, there is no point having members of the ECOWAS parliament with legislative powers as the parliaments of the member's states already enjoy such authority and are better enough in catering for the law making needs of their respective nationals. So they prefer the ECOWAS parliament to exist as a ceremonial body whose meetings are just formalities and all the laws from such parliaments to remain at the discretion of the governments and parliaments of member states. These individuals strongly believe in stronger parliaments of member states over that of the ECOWAS parliament of which the national laws override that of the ECOWAS laws. To these people therefore, the citizenship of the respective ECOWAS member states supersedes the citizenship of ECOWAS.

The recent drama between the government of Ghana represented by the Trade Minister Hannah Tetteh and the ECOWAS parliament represented by Mr. Michael Teye Nyaunu, exposed the fallacy of the indirect representation in the ECOWAS parliament than anyone could ever imagine. The trade minister did not mince words in telling the MP for Lower Manya elected to the parliament of Ghana who is also doubling up as the deputy speaker of ECOWAS parliament, to “shuff up the ECOWAS directive down his own backside” as the authority is yet to have the citizens of the ECOWAS member states voting for its members to make it earn the necessary legislative power. The Hon. Minister of Trade made it clear that she is not changing her position or taking any directive from the higher law making body simply because the body only has advisory authority over her member states that give the state in question the option of obeying or disobeying the laws of ECOWAS parliament.

So far, every one of the fifteen ECOWAS member states is free to do as they please which unfortunately defeat the purpose of setting up the higher parliament in the first place. Further more the huge amount of money of the ECOWAS tax payer spent in putting together the One-hundred and twenty (120) ECOWAS parliamentarians, to deliberate and make common laws for the 280 million citizens of all the 15 member states of ECOWAS combined, is just a waste of time since member states are going to disregard these laws anyway. It is also important to bear in mind that there are several taxes annually collected from the population of ECOWAS as ECOWAS tax by member states from their citizens that end up in the pockets of local criminals. What else could anyone expect from those who are fully aware that directly elected ECOWAS parliamentarians will be challenging all these social abuse?

The Treaty establishing this parliament however foresaw these unfortunate circumstances and thus decided to put into writing an option that will be making the laws of the ECOWAS parliament legislative enough. The treaty made it very clear that the citizens of ECOWAS have an option of electing their members of ECOWAS parliament through direct universal suffrage. Thus, the ECOWAS preferable approach is a system of which candidates are field by their respective political parties in member states to contest directly for the parliament of ECOWAS in Abuja. The determinants of ECOWAS parliamentary membership are expected to be the electorates of the member states by their understanding of a candidate's position on ECOWAS related concerns and the political party/organizational agenda that he/she represents.

By this approach, individuals could stand in the designated constituencies as independent or party candidates to contest for citizens' mandate at the ECOWAS level. Equally small groups of bodies as is the case in the EU could also field candidates to promote their views at the ECOWAS level which would not have been the case at the national level, as long as they are registered and are able to meet up with the condition of the national electoral commission.

At this point in time, individuals campaign purely on local issues only to be rewarded with what such individual have faint idea about at the ECOWAS level. Just like the work of the Ghanaian parliamentarian, the job of the ECOWAS parliamentarian is a full time and very challenging task. Law making in parliament involves so much as it entails a lot of researches and debates. Law making at the level of Ghana is more than enough a challenge as all the local complications have to be meticulously taken into consideration before arriving at anything. This however, could even be more complicated when such law maker is making a law for all the 15 ECOWAS states with several socio-eco-political diversities.

The current practice of which member states' parliamentarians are thus drawn to go to the ECOWAS parliament is either an indication that our national parliaments and parliamentarians are actually not in place to make any law thereby having all the time in the world to spend doing nothing in ECOWAS parliament or there are no laws to be made at all.

The time to be making laws on the continent of Africa and the ECOWAS for that matter is no other than now. It is time for us to stop mimicking the laws of our colonial masters and start making our own laws. No wonder all we do is imitating the colonial masters in this day and age, and even getting it wrong now and again because our circumstances are unique that require unique laws.

My recent visit to the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Belgium exposed so much to me and explained how the EU is working despite the complicated diversity that exist among and within the member states. The bottom line is that every one of the EU parliamentarian is elected directly from his/her constituency. Each candidate campaign on a unique agenda and feed back to his/her constituency. The performance of each representative is the determinant of whether the electorates will be voting for such person again or not.

Now that we know what to do in making the citizens of ECOWAS and their parliament of ECOWAS the masters of their destiny, what can be holding us back in getting things done right? Now that we know that the Electoral Commission of Ghana is capable of readjusting our ten (10) regions to create the eight (8) constituencies of our ECOWAS parliamentary seats, it then become our duty to actualize the dream of one man one vote for the ECOWAS parliament in Ghana.

Finally, converting our current ECOWAS parliament advisory powers into a true legislative power is in our best interest. The solution equally is in our direct votes to the ECOWAS parliament of our representatives and the sooner we get this through, the earlier we start having enough time to face other important challenges. Our centre The AFRICA UNION CITIZEN ADVICE BEURAU (AUCAB) prints and distributes materials on this. Join the AGA to make it happen. It's now just a matter of time.

Kofi Ali Abdul-Yekin
Skyp: kofialiabdul1, [email protected]