The Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila has expressed hopes that Nigeria and Ghana will arrive at mutually acceptable resolutions to the trade disputes that ensued some weeks back.

The Speaker, who led a delegation of lawmakers from the House of Representatives made this known while they were received by the Speaker of the Ghanaian parliament, Rt. Hon. Prof. Mike Oquaye, as they arrived Accra, Ghana, on a legislative diplomatic mission.

The Nigerian speaker explained that the two-day visit to Ghana was meant to explore legislative diplomacy towards resolving the issues affecting both countries.

The Chairman House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Buba Yusuf; Chairman House Committee on Media, Rep. Benjamin Kalu; House Member of Ecowas Parliament, Rep. Bayo Balogun, Rep. Ikenna Elezieanya, Rep Ephraim Nwuzi, and Rep. Balarabe Shehu went along with the speaker.

The Speaker of the Ghanaian Parliament, Rt. Hon. Prof. Oquaye, while welcoming the delegation expressed confidence for an amicable resolution of the issues as he 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 realize 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 in the next two days we will bring a beautiful reunion to our two Nations.”

In response to his statement, Mr. Gbajabiamila, after thanking his counterpart for the warm welcome, emphasized that within the next two days of discussions, hopefully, they would be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution between both countries.

“There’s something in modern-day 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 teeth. Brothers will always have squabbles, healthy ones, national interest on both sides will always come to play but it’s not the misunderstanding that matters, it’s how you resolve it that matters.

“In Africa, you cannot talk about Nigeria without talking about Ghana and you cannot talk about Ghana without talking about Nigeria and therefore it has become incumbent on us, one as leaders of parliament and two generally as parliamentarians to bring to bear this concept of legislative diplomacy for fruitful results.

“The weight and burden of our international relationship rest actually on parliamentary shoulders and it is my hope that we will, in two days, reach some resolutions that will settle both countries,” the Nigerian speaker said.

After their meeting with the Ghanian speaker, the delegates went to the Nigerian High Commission where they met with Leaders of the Nigerian Union of Traders and Selected Stakeholders. This gave the Speaker and his team the opportunity to hear from the traders about their experiences.

The leader of the Nigerian traders in Ghana, Chief Chukwuemeka Levi Nnaji, informed Gbajabiamila and his entourage that Nigerian traders have been made to undergo a lot of hardship by the Ghanaian authorities since 2007.

Chief Nnaji said that despite their compliance to the rules and regulations of the state, Nigerians traders were always the target for harsh treatments whenever both countries are having issues adding that Nigerians traders have their trades registered with appropriate agencies, and pay their taxes regularly, yet they were subjected to harsh treatment by the authorities.

Citing an example, Chief Nnaji said that while many Nigerian traders could not afford the latest $1m trade registration fees, those that paid still had their shops under lock and key with about 250 shops locked up by the authorities, thereby leading to the death of some of their members. He, however, appealed to the Speaker to follow up on the legislative diplomatic initiative in order to ensure that the resolutions arrived at are implemented by the Ghanaian authorities.