Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has secured the
blessings of President Muhammadu Buhari before leaving for Ghana on
what he called “Legislative Diplomacy”, over the closure of Nigerian
shops in the West African country.

Gbajabiamila had last week said the closure of Nigerian shops in Ghana
contravened Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) trade
protocols and had called for a decisive solution between both
countries.

Speaking to State House correspondents yesterday, ,Gbajabiamila said
he will meet with the Speaker of the parliament in Ghana to look at
the issues on ground.

He said, “One of the issues we discussed today, I’m leaving for
Ghana tomorrow to meet with the Speaker of the parliament in Ghana to
look at the issues on ground, as it affects our citizens, and to try
and calm things down and see if there’s a way forward.

“I’ll meet with the Speaker tomorrow, I informed the President and
he’s aware of every single step that we are taking, all the way and we
hope that we’ll come to an amicable settlement one way or the other.

“It’s called Legislative Diplomacy, if you remember very well, during
the days when I was Leader of the House, I lead the delegation to
South Africa during the crisis there with Nigerians and we were able
to accomplish quite a bit, to simmer things down at that time.”

On demands Nigeria is taking to Ghana, he said, “No demands, we are just
going to discuss in the spirit of African Parliaments and we’ll be
looking at issues from time to time as they affect African countries
and this is one of them.”

Asked how he feels about the situation in Ghana at the moment, the
speaker replied, “I don’t want to make any statement at this time so
that we don’t exacerbate matters. Like I said, we are looking for
amicable solutions. The Ghanaians have their take on what’s going on,
we have our own take. We’ll see how we can marry the two takes and
come to a solution.

“We are two strong West African countries and there must be symbiosis,
we must work together. You don’t get anything from working at cross
purposes or knocking heads together. We must, at all times, as
Africans, work as best as possible together and that’s what this my
trip is about.”

On what the President said , he said, “He was happy, I believe all
avenues must be explored, he believes it, he’s a man of peace who
believes every avenue for peace must be exploited, must be explored.
Yeah, we are all on the same page.”

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