Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta, Senator Nurudeen Abatemi-Usman, representing Kogi Central on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that he will leave no stone unturned to ensure adequate representation of Nigeria as a member of Pan African Parliament, PAP.
Abatemi-Usman, the youngest senator in the Seventh Senate is one of the 28 new members from eight countries sworn in at the Fifth Ordinary Session of the Second Pan-African Parliament, which opened on Monday, 3 October, 2011 in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
In a statement signed by his media assistant, Michael Jegede, a one-time Special Assistant to ex-Speaker of House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, the senator expressed joy over his emergence as a member of PAP and vowed to do the country proud by ensuring that he makes valuable contributions at every sitting of the African Parliament.
“I feel great about my emergence as a member of the Pan African Parliament. I see it as a challenge and an opportunity to represent my country at the level of the African Union to which the Pan African Parliament is affiliated to.
“I will not disappoint Nigeria because I will make sure that our voice is very much heard at that level of parliamentary activities. I will make Nigeria proud with sound and valuable contribution to discussions that will bring about total peace, unity and oneness among African countries and the overall transformation of Africa as a continent.
The PAP which is made up of 265 members with five from each of the African countries excluding Morroco, was established in March 2004, by Article 17 of The Constitutive Act of the African Union, as one of the nine organs provided for in the Treaty establishing the African Economic Community signed in Abuja, Nigeria, in 1991.
Its establishment was informed by a vision to provide a common platform for the people of Africa and their grassroots organisations to be more involved in discussions and decision making on the problems facing the African continent
