In view of the social and economic upheavals facing the country, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Abiodun Salami, save it was time now for Nigeria to run a unicameral legislative assembly to reduce cost of governance.
Nigerians have been clamouring for political reforms and a pruned government to reduce government expenditure. They also demanded a slash in the pay of the lawmakers, whose salary is among the highest in the world.
Some countries with unicameral legislatures include China, with the National People’s Congress, Norway’s Storting, Sweden with the Riksdag, Denmark’s Folketing and Portugal’s Assembly of the Republic.
Salami said the Senate and House of Representatives should be merged and the number of legislators pruned, to have a single-chamber legislature.
He said operating the House of Representatives and the Senate together is a burden on the country’s resources.
“Bi-cameral legislature is wasteful. We can merge the Senate and the House of Representatives to have a single house to ease the business of lawmaking and reduce the huge funds spent to maintain the two chambers that we have now.
“We can merge the two chambers and then reduce the number of lawmakers. The country spends a lot maintaining the 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives
“We are having challenges with the economy right now. We should be ready to make sacrifices and take bold steps. The bicameral legislature we are having,t o me, is frivolity”, he said
Also speaking human rights activist Aisha Yesufu said the Senate should be scrapped to save costs and curb corruption.
“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 cost 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. 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.
