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Usman Bugaje, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives said Wednesday that the National Assembly had not been consulted over asylum for President Charles Taylor of Liberia.
Bugaje briefed reporters that the federal government took a unilateral decision on the issue, adding that the government had failed to consult the leadership of National Assembly in taking such important decision which would affect not only Nigeria but also Nigerians.
"As far as I know," he said, "we have not been consulted on this matter. I cannot now say whether the action is right or wrong, dangerous or not dangerous."
Bugaje added that although exigencies of any moment could make the executive to take certain decisions, "I would have thought that having taken such decisions, they would get back to the House."
He stressed that what the parliament worried was that the executive took these decisions and they did not quite consult the House on issues that would eventually come back to the House.
Meeting with Liberian President Charles Taylor on Sunday in Liberia's capital Monrovia, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo offered Taylor asylum in Nigeria.
Taylor has been indicted for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone by a UN-mandated court and US President George W. Bush has made several calls for Taylor to step down and leave his war-torn west African country.
(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2003)
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