Kayode Fayemi, the governor of
Ekiti state, says Nigeria can scrap the senate as all the country really needs
is a unicameral legislature.
Speaking at the just concluded
25th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group conference, the governor
said Nigeria has to look into the size of government.
“We do need to look at the size
of government in Nigeria and I am an advocate of a unicameral legislature. What
we really need is the house of representatives because that is what
represents,” he said.
“You have three senators from
little Ekiti and you have three senators from Lagos state. It’s a no-brainer
that it’s unequal, I guess the principle is not proportionality but that if you
are a state, you get it automatically but I think that we can do away with
that. There are several things that we can do away within the government.
“The Oronsaye report that
proposed mergers of several MDAs that are doing the same thing is something
that the government should pay serious attention to and reduce the resources
being expended on them.”
Nigeria’s national assembly
consists of a senate with 109 members and a 360-member house of
representatives.
HOW GOVERNORS SPEND SECURITY VOTE
Defending the security vote spent
by governors, Fayemi, who was also a former minister of mines and steel, said:
“Security vote exists in various forms and not just in Nigeria. They may not
call it security vote, they may call it contingency vote.
“The important thing is the
government utilises a wide range of mechanism to guarantee security in a state
and it is not just ammunition and weapons that I am talking about. Even keeping
the touts in check is a security challenge in many states and managing that
process may cost you money that you cannot necessarily show the auditors.
“The other element which states
don’t get credit for is what we do for the federal police. Nigeria is the only
federation in the world that I know runs a centralised police force. You have
federal police that is not being funded properly by the federal government so
the responsibility for funding those guys that are posted to your state is on
the state. You buy uniforms, ammunition, pay allowances, do life insurance, buy
vehicles; that is not provided for and that is security vote because we are
expected to protect the citizens.
“Let me also say this, you will
not hear it out there from anybody. When people are kidnapped and their
relatives are harassing the governor or security institutions to track down the
victims.
“We track them down, we know
where they are. What you hear us say outside is that we don’t pay ransom and we
stick by that. We don’t pay ransom, we don’t bribe kidnappers but we get those
people released.
“I will not go into the ugly
details but we spend money in ensuring that we get abductees and victims out of
harm’s way because ultimately that is what the victim wants us to do. The
parents don’t want to hear the story that we don’t pay a ransom. You just have
to whatever you have to do to ensure that we get our citizens out of danger.”
Fayemi was on the panel alongside
Babatunde Fowler, executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service
(FIRS), Jordi Borrut Bel, Nigerian Breweries MD, and Eme Essien, country
manager of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
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