A renowned rights activist, Aisha Yesufu has called for the scrapping of the Nigerian Senate to reduce the cost of governance.
Yesufu, Co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement,
made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday
in Lagos.
She was reacting to calls in some quarters that the country
should jettison the bicameral legislature(two-chamber National Assembly) and
adopt a unicameral legislature to reduce the cost of governance.
The activist said Nigeria could, alternatively, consider the
re-introduction of the parliamentary system of government to reduce the heavy
funds spent on the National Assembly.
According to her, until something is done about the cost of
running the government and corruption, Nigerians will not feel the dividends of
democracy.
“We need to really and critically examine our democracy and
look at what fits us and serve the ordinary people and the masses. The one that
will not be too expensive.
“What we have now is too expensive. We need to cut costs and
not just continue what we have that has not been working for Nigerians.
“I totally support the call for us to have a unicameral
legislature and scrapping the Senate, it is very important because the kind of
governance that we are practising is very expensive.
“As a country, we really don’t have that kind of money.
Apart from this, the fact is that both the Senate and House of Representatives
end up duplicating functions in terms of what they do,” Yesufu said.
She said the Senate had been turned into ”a retirement home
for a lot of incompetent and failed governors who didn’t do anywhere well for
the people in their state.”
She said that Nigerians had continued to bear the brunt of
the resources annually allocated to these political ‘retirees’ in the Senate.
Yesufu added: “It (Senate) is a joke ground, we cannot say
what the Senate does is in a real sense different from what the House of
Representatives do.
“They (Senators) do nothing special and at the end of the
day, they are paid a humongous amount of our money and such huge allowances for
doing nothing different.
“We found out that a good number of them, especially those
that are former governors, while they get this humongous salary, are collecting
pension from their respective states.
“There is no way democracy can work for the masses with this
kind of waste of public funds that could have been directed to put happiness to
the face of the common man.”
According to her, Senegal is practising a unicameral legislature,
after abolishing the Senate for the second time in September 2012.
She said: “The House of Representatives is enough for it to
be able to take care of the law-making aspect of the nation, oversight and
other things that the legislative arm of government does.
“Unicameral legislature should be adopted in Nigeria because
bicameralism is too expensive apart from the fact that it slows down the
business of lawmaking.
“It is not working for us, we don’t have the kind of money
to run it and maintain this, especially at a time when the masses are
suffering.
“Having a single legislative arm will pay us better in terms
of reduction of cost of governance,” she said.
Yesufu decried that Nigeria had not in a real sense been
practising a true federal system of government.
The activist further said the country could also adopt the
parliamentary system of government to reduce the cost of governance.
She said that Nigeria could no longer sustain the current
presidential system of government.
“This will also pay us in terms of reduction of the cost of
governance because whoever is leading the country is the one that is first
among equals.
“Ministers in this system are selected from members of the
parliament that are elected.
“So, that reduces the cost of governance drastically and
better than what we have now where separate people are brought in as
ministers,” she said.
The activist said that both the bicameral legislature and
presidential system of government had brought a lot of pressure on the nation’s
resources.
“We can have a parliamentary system of government, we shall
be reducing the cost of governance drastically.
“The Prime Minister would not be this powerful and exercise
control over everything, including the appointed ministers, because ministers
are also members of the parliament,” she said.
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