CSOs demand election of ECOWAS MPs

The United Nations Millennium Campaign has backed calls for a review of the selection process for representatives of the ECOWAS parliament.

This follows a proposal by a Forum of Civil Society groups across thirteen countries in West Africa, for an election system to select the sub-Regional lawmakers.

The ECOWAS Parliament is the Assembly of Legislators of Member-states. Its members represent all the people of West Africa. It consists of 115 seats. Each of the 15 Member-States has at least five seats.

The remaining seats are shared in proportion to the population. As a result, Nigeria has 35 seats, Ghana 8, Côte d'Ivoire 7, while Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal have 6 seats each. Other countries: Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo have 5 seats each.

Under the current arrangement, Member-States choose lawmakers from their respective national legislatures as representative in the ECOWAS Chamber.

But those pushing for elections argue that the current selection process undermines the essence of true representation.

They say the countries must subject the representation process to elections, to enable interested persons to contest.

Coordinator of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, Hillary Ogbonna said: “currently the ECOWAS parliament cannot make laws because they do not have the electoral legitimacy of being elected.”

Ogbonna suggested that “in every country, you should have separate elections for national parliament and [a] a separate election for ECOWAS parliament so those contesting for ECOWAS parliament will need a manifesto on what they want to do in ECOWAS parliament, and therefore will go there enabled to act on regional issues, not just to transfer their national issues to the ECOWAS parliament.”