The sixth Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been inaugurated.
It was inaugurated on Thursday in Abuja by
the President of Nigeria and Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, Bola Tinubu.
The inaugural session of the Parliament which formally marks the commencement of the business of the 6th legislature, is pursuant to Article 28 of the Supplementary Act on the Enhancement of the Powers of the ECOWAS Parliament of 2016, following the end of the fifth Legislature of the ECOWAS Parliament on March 8, 2024.
One of the high points of the inaugural session is the swearing in of the Representatives elected to the Community Parliament by the various parliaments of member states, with the new members affirming before the chairman of the authority, their commitment to serve the interests of the people of the region.
At the session, members will also elect Speaker of the sixth legislature to serve a four-year tenure, in accordance with the provisions of the Supplementary Act 2016.
The ECOWAS Parliament is the representative assembly of the peoples of the community which has 115 seats.
Each member state is guaranteed a minimum of allotted five seats. The remaining forty seats are distributed in proportion to the population of each country.
Consequently, Nigeria has a total of 35 seats followed by Ghana with eight seats. Côte d’Ivoire is allotted seven seats, whereas Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal have six seats each.
The remaining ECOWAS member states, namely Benin, Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Togo, have allotted to each of them, five seats.
