New Telegraph

Gbajabiamila raises hope of resolving Nigeria, Ghana’s face-off

…as traders narrate ordeals

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, yesterday said he was hopeful that Nigeria and Ghana would arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution of the trade disputes that erupted some weeks back. Gbajabiamila, who led a delegation of lawmakers from the House, said this when the delegation was received by the Speaker of the Ghanaian parliament, Hon. Prof. Mike Oquaye, as they arrived in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, on a legislative diplomatic mission.

He said the two-day visit to Ghana was meant to explore legislative diplomacy towards resolving the issues affecting both countries. Alongside the speaker on the legislative diplomatic mission, were the Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hon. Buba Yusuf and his Media and Public Affairs counterpart, Hon. Benjamin Kalu; a member of the ECOWAS Parliament, Hon. Bayo Balogun, Hon. Ikenna Elezieanya, Hon. Ephraim Nwuzi and Hon. Balarabe Shehu. Welcoming the Nigerian delegation, Speaker of the Ghanaian Parliament, Hon. Prof. Oquaye, who expressed confidence in an amicable resolution of the issues said: “Ghana and Nigeria are like the tongue and the teeth, they must interact, and sometimes the teeth may do havoc, and yet it never regrets the taste that the tongue gives to it. That’s what happens if we don’t interact.

“Even when we step on one another’s feet, in the process we should come to realise that there’s a need to continue to be together and we, therefore, welcome you, thank you very much for your keenness in responding to my call that we should meet and you took a quick step in arranging to be here today “I trust that in the next two days, we will bring a beautiful reunion to our two nations.” Responding, Speaker Gbajabiamila, while thanking his counterpart for the warm welcome, emphasised that within the next two days of discussions, hopefully, they would be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution between both countries. He said: “There’s something in modernday parlance called legislative diplomacy or parliamentary diplomacy, and that’s what obtains all over the world today. Diplomacy is done from all angles, including backchannel such as what we are doing now and sometimes you get results that you can only imagine.

So, I look forward to a fruitful discussion as we move forward. “Like you rightly said, Nigeria and Ghana are more like Siamese twins, and brothers. I love the analogy you came up with, like the tongue and the teeth. Brothers will always have squabbles, healthy ones, national interest on both side will always come to play but it’s not the misunderstanding that matters, it’s how you resolve it that matters.

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