House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila has advocated full integration in Africa using the legislative instrument to have a common passport, market and a single customs and monetary union.
Gbajabiamila, who spoke at the opening of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Africa Region 51st Conference in Abuja on Thursday, said there was the need to “agree to use the instruments of trade and common markets to set us irreversibly on the path to a future of honourable peace, abiding prosperity and brotherhood amongst the nations of Africa.”
President Muhammadu Buhari, represented by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, declared the 51st CPA Africa Region open.
Gbajabiamila, in his welcome address, noted that the CPA Africa Region had and would continue to play an essential role in advancing democracy in Africa, noting that it provided an opportunity for parliamentarians across Africa to engage with and learn from each other about the challenges they shared and the strategies for overcoming them.
He said: “…let us commit ourselves to using the tools of parliamentary diplomacy and authority to enable the achievement of a common Passport, a common market and a single customs and monetary union that will make full African integration possible. Let us agree to use the instruments of trade and common markets to set us irreversibly on the path to a future of honourable peace.”
The Speaker lamented a situation where Africa witnessed a reversal of the democratic gains made over the past two decades in Sudan, Mali, Guinea, Niger and Chad, amongst others.
“It is, therefore, apt that we have chosen to make addressing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic the theme of our Conference this year. This will allow us to critically examine the present conditions across Africa, consider options for building political and economic resilience using the tools and powers of parliament, and affirm our shared commitment to the goal of a democratic, free and prosperous continent,” he said.
Through annual conferences, seminars, workshops, parliamentary visits and exchanges, Gbajabiamila said, the association had helped build and expand parliamentary expertise and capacity for legislators and legislative staff across the continent both at the national and sub-national levels.
He said the work of the CPA Africa Region was sustained by innovation and the creative use of limited resources, citing the Investment Board as one of such innovations, which allowed it to venture into a commercial activity that saw plans for the construction of a 5-star multipurpose hotel in Dodoma, Tanzania hatched.
Despite that, however, Gbajabiamila said challenges still abound, and that they were working to overcome them.
