By Gift Chapi Odekina
The House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora, Thursday said that it would reintroduce the Diaspora voting bill again in order to accommodate Nigerians living abroad.
The Chairman of the committee,
Rep. Tolulope Shadipe, disclosed this when the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa, appeared before the committee.
Dabiri-Erewa was at the National Assembly to defend the commission’s 2023 budget and 2022 budget performance in Abuja on Thursday.
According to the chairman, “we are going to reintroduce the diaspora voting bill which was rejected during the constitution amendment exercise”
Shadipe said the bill for the Diaspora voting would pass this time because that is the direction the world is going and Nigeria must not be left behind.
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”.
She said the committee was also looking at the issue of people of Nigerian descent who were currently not Nigerians but want to return home after the DNA tests proved that they had ties to Nigeria.
In March during the Constitution Amendment by the House of Reps, diaspora voting suffered defeat during the exercise, as the lawmakers rejected the bill.
Dabiri-Erewa, in his response urged Nigerians to stop migrating to other countries if they did not have jobs there.
According to her, eighty percent of prisoners in Dubai are Nigerians, who went there without jobs and got into trouble.
She said there was need for a stronger multi-sector collaboration to stop the trend.
