A renowned political and civil 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 for the country to jettison its bicameral legislature and adopt a unicameral legislature to reduce the cost of governance.
NAN reports that a unicameral legislature is a system with one chamber or house, as opposed to a bicameral legislature, which has two chambers (Senate and House of Representatives). Some countries with unicameral legislatures include China (National People’s Congress), Sweden (Riksdag), Norway (Storting), Denmark (Folketing), and Portugal (Assembly of the Republic).
The activist suggested that Nigeria could alternatively consider reintroducing 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 serves 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 with what we have that has not been working for Nigerians.
“I totally support the call for us to have a unicameral legislature. 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 the House of Representatives end up duplicating functions in terms of what they do,” Yesufu said.
She criticised the Senate for becoming “a retirement home for a lot of incompetent and failed governors who didn’t do well for the people in their state.”
According to her, Nigerians have continued to bear the brunt of the resources annually allocated to these political ‘retirees’ in the Senate.
Yesufu said, “It is a joke ground; we cannot say what the Senate does is really different from what the House of Representatives does.
“They 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, they are also collecting pensions 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 on 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.
“The House of Representatives is capable of taking care of the lawmaking 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 and maintain this, especially at a time when the masses are suffering.
“Having a single legislative arm will benefit us better in terms of reducing the cost of governance,” she said.
Yesufu lamented that Nigeria had not been practising a true federal system of government.
She suggested that the country could also adopt the parliamentary system of government to reduce the cost of governance.
According to her, Nigeria could no longer sustain the current presidential system of government.
“This will also benefit us in terms of reducing the cost of governance because whoever is leading the country is the first among equals.
“Ministers in this system are selected from members of the parliament who 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 well.
“The Prime Minister would not be this powerful and exercise control over everything, including the appointed ministers, because ministers are also members of parliament,” she said.
