Senate president Akpabio gets new appointment

Senate president, Godswill Akpabio has been appointed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union as a member of the Preparatory Committee for the Sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament 2025.

A statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the Senate President, Jackson Udom, said Akpabio’s nomination was contained in a letter signed by the General Secretary of the IPU, Martin Chungong, and addressed to the Senate President.

The nomination letter reads, “I wish to congratulate you upon your nomination as a member of the Preparatory Committee for the Sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament (2025) and to invite you to a first meeting of the Preparatory Committee at IPU Headquarters in Geneva on 16-17 May 2024.

“As you are aware, every five years since 2000, the Inter-Parliamentary Union has convened a World Conference of Speakers of Parliament.

“The Conferences are organized in close cooperation with the United Nations and aim to reinforce the parliamentary dimension in the work of the UN and to bridge the democracy gap in international relations.

“At the recently concluded 148th IPU Assembly, further to consultations with Member Parliaments and the Geopolitical Groups, the composition of the Preparatory Committee for the 2025 Speakers’ Conference was endorsed by the IPU governing bodies.

“I expect that three meetings of the Preparatory Committee will be held between May 2024 and the Speakers’ Conference which is tentatively scheduled to take place from Wednesday 30 July 2025 to Friday 1 August 2025 and preceded by the Summit of Women Speakers in Bern on Tuesday 29 July.7.

“Preparations for the Speakers’ Conference are spearheaded by a Preparatory Committee composed of some 20 Speakers of Parliament, a select number of representatives of the IPU
Executive Committee, and the senior representative of the UN Secretary-General.”