The House of Representatives Committees on Diaspora Thursday said the Diaspora voting bill will be reintroduced in the parliament, with assurances of its speedy passage.
The bill earlier considered in the latest constitution amendment exercise could not gather the required number of votes to becoming a part of the voting laws.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Tolulope Akande-Shadipe, gave the new assurance when chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, appeared before the panel to defend the commission’s 2023 budget, saying the parliament must eventually pass the rejected bill because that is the direction the entire world is going.
“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 complicit in this issue of illegal migration. Once the immigration authorities are complicit, we are only making notice,” she said.
Chairman of NIDCOM, Dabiri-Erewa in her presentation urged Nigerians to stop migrating to other countries if they don’t have jobs there, adding that 80 percent of prisoners in Dubai are Nigerians who went there without waiting jobs for them, and so they sooner than later got into trouble.