The House of Representatives Committees on Diaspora has said they are going to re-introduce and quicken the passage into law the diaspora voting bill which was rejected during the constitution amendment excercise by the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
Chairman of the House Committee Hon Tolulope Akande-Shadipe, stated this when the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer CEO of Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission NIDCOM, Dr Abike Dabiri-Erewa, appeared before the Committee to defend the commission’s 2023 budget.
Akande-Shadipe said the must eventually pass the rejected bill because that is the direction the entire world is going.
She said: “We would be back with the bill. They are Nigerians and they have the right to vote in Nigerian elections. The modalities and the issues that were raised the last time would be resolved and we would come back to it
“Many citizens of Nigeria are leaving the country and the Nigeria Immigration Service is complict in this issue of illegal migration. Once the immigration authorities are complict, we are only making notice”.
The lawmaker further revealed that the Committee is also looking at the issue of people of Nigerian descent who currently are not Nigerians but want to return home after DNA tests conducted by the authorities had proven that they have ties to Nigeria.
At the presentation, Chairman and CEO of NIDCOM Dr. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, urged Nigerians to stop migrating to other countries if they don’t have jobs there.
According to her, eighty percent of prisoners in Dubai are Nigerians, who went there without waiting jobs for them and so they sooner than later got into trouble.
Abike Dabiri a former lawmaker stressed the need for a stronger multi-sector collaboration between the Nigerian Immigration Service NIS, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons NAPTIP and other agencies to stop the trend.
She added that the Nigerian authorities need to put their house in order in order to halt the citizens of the country from moving out to other countries in droves.
