ECOWAS Parliament Gets First Female Speaker

By Linda Ike

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Parliament) has elected the first female speaker to oversee the activities of the regional legislative arm.

The new Speaker of the Community Parliament Memounatou Ibrahima, from the Republic of Togo, was elected at the 2024 Second Extraordinary Session of the Sixth Legislature of the Parliament in Kano State, Nigeria.

Ibrahima was the third Deputy Speaker in the fifth Legislature of ECOWAS Parliament; she has been in the community Parliament since 2021.

She emerged as speaker due to the rotation of the speakership of the ECOWAS Parliament in alphabetical order by the provision of the Supplementary Act on Enhancement of Power

The position of the fifth Legislature of ECOWAS Parliament which ended this year was held by Sierra Leone.

Ibrahima is taking up the baton from the first deputy speaker of the sixth legislature of the community parliament, Senator Barau Jubrin, a Nigerian delegation who was an acting Speaker of the parliament.
Jubrin held the position shortly to avoid creating a vacuum of leadership at the ECOWAS Parliament.

During the inauguration of the Sixth Legislature of the ECOWAS on April 4th, 2024, the delegation of Togo was not present hence election had not been conducted in the country to send their representatives to the Community Parliament.