The Speaker spoke while receiving the German Ambassador to Nigeria, Annett Günther in his office, appealing to the German government to assist in advancing and sustaining democracy in the country.
Abbas also called for more collaborations and engagements between the Nigerian National Assembly and the German Parliament also known as The Bundestag.
He disclosed the House plans to create about 40 friendship committees to Interface with parliaments in other parts of the world as part of efforts at deepening relationships with such countries.
The Speaker said: “I want to appreciate the long-standing and historical relationship between Nigeria and Germany, which spans more than 60 years. To the best of my knowledge, it has been a mutually beneficial relationship.
“Both the German and Nigerian governments have benefitted immensely from the relationship. I am proud to say that in Africa today, we are one of the major partners of Germany in diplomatic relationships.
“We believe this can be further exploited in the future, and there are so many other areas that we can look into, to deepen our relationship with you. In due course, we will highlight some of those areas of economic advantage to both Germany and Nigeria.
“We want to see more and increased collaboration in the area of cultural ties between Germany and Nigeria. I know we are doing fairly well in that respect, but there are so many areas that we are yet to touch.
“One area of major concern to us is further collaboration in what we do here, that is legislative collaboration between the parliaments of Germany and Nigeria.
“We want to see in the next coming years, particularly under this administration, how we can further strengthen collaboration and relationship between the parliaments of Germany and Nigeria”.
While stressing the possibilities of strengthening the legislative relationship between Nigeria and Germany, he said “in a similar way like the United Kingdom has been offering us by way of technical assistance.”
On the issue of women in governance and politics, the Speaker said more members of the House were now interested in enabling more women in the parliament.
“We are very hopeful that this time around, the Constitution review we are going to embark on before the end of the year will significantly increase the number of women in parliament,” he said.
He said that apart from the existing House Committee on Women Affairs, the 9th House created the Committee on Women in Parliament as part of efforts towards empowering women to become lawmakers.
Earlier, Ambassador Günther said the visit was to “lay a new foundation” for the partnership between Germany and Nigeria, especially with the recent change of government in the West African country.
She said the relationship between the two countries dates back to the early days of Nigeria’s independence, stressing that “there is a lot of economic cooperation” between them.
The Ambassador stressed that beyond bilateral relations, Germany has provided humanitarian assistance to Nigeria, especially concerning the security crises in the North-East and the North-West of the country.
