Abike Dabiri-Erewa calls on Nigerians abroad to pressurise new National Assembly on diaspora voting

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari's special assistant on foreign and diaspora affairs Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa has renewed her call for diasporans to be granted the right to vote in Nigerian elections given their contribution to the country's economy.

Between 2003 and 2015, Hon Dabiri-Erewa was a member of the House of Representatives and the chairman of its Diaspora Committee. In this capacity she sponsored a bill calling for diasporans given the right to vote but it was defeated on the floor of the House and subsequent attempts to get the bill re-introduced have failed.

Since 29015, Hon Dabiri-Erewa has used her no position to keep canvassing for diaspora voting but for it to become a reality, the National Assembly needs to pass a bill to that effect. Speaking in the US yesterday at a diaspora leadership conference organised by the Nigerian Consulate in New York, Hon Dabiri-Erewa called on diasporans to keep up the pressure on the National Assembly.

She added that diaspora voting was one of the things the Nigerian Diaspora Commission, which she currently chairs, would pursue relentlessly when it becomes operational. Lawmakers still need to pass a law enabling the Nigeria Diaspora Commission to start functioning and a bill to that effect is currently before the senate.

According to Hon Dabiri-Erewa, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) had indicated its readiness for diaspora voting, lawmakers were uncomfortable with the idea for reasons unknown to her. Pointing out that the system was critical to the development of the nation’s politics and electoral process, Hon Dabiri-Erewa pleaded with Nigerians overseas, to join forces to make it happen.

Hon Dabiri-Erewa said: “We all have to make it happen. It is going to be tough and I tell you in politics, lawmakers are not too comfortable with the idea, I don’t know why but we have to make it happen.

"If Ghana and Sierra Leone, smaller countries are doing diaspora voting, why can’t we? It just has to happen and I believe diaspora voting will help our politics and voting system.

“Inec has said they are ready, President Muhammadu Buhari told you when he met you that he is ready but the only people we have to beg to make that happen is the National Assembly. In 2016, the Inec chairman Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, said the commission was determined to providing Nigerians living outside the country the opportunity to have a say in determining who will be our leaders."

At the time Professor Yakubu made it clear, however, that a bill or a constitutional amendment was needed to realise diaspora voting. Nigerian diasporans remit home about $35bn a year, far more than the country's $28.8bn annual budget and in excess of the contributions of any of Nigeria's 36 states to the economy, apart from maybe Lagos.