Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Idris Wase has said that Nigerians living abroad can’t submit petitions over some incidents which occurred in the country.
Mr. Wase who sat in for Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila during Thursday’s plenary, rejected a petition filed by “Mutual Union of the Tiv in America” on insecurity in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba.
Mark Terseer Gbillah, the lawmaker representing Benue Gwer east/Gwer west federal constituency had presented the group’s petition in which they accused the federal government of not resettling the Tiv people displaced from their ancestral land through various attack
Gbillah said “I have a petition from the mutual union of the Tiv in America against the federal government of Nigeria and the issue has to do with the ancestral land of the TIV people that seems to have been possessed in recent times through various attacks and the fact that they are languishing in IDP camps till date without any intervention”
Responding to the petition, Wase asked “Honourable Gbillah, did you say Tivs in America? What do they know about Nigeria? What is their business? They can’t sit in their comfort zones and know what is happening in Nigeria. If they are in America could they really be an interested party here? Do they really know what is exactly going on? I don’t want to make a blanket statement regarding those who are in diaspora. If this petition is coming from those who are within the country, I believe it has a very block standard. But those living in America, then coming to lodge complain.”