By Lanre Oloyede
Amidst the economic crisis in the country, chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Jackson Lekan-Ojo, has canvassed for the return to parliamentary system of government in Nigeria.
According to the party Chieftain, with the prevailing economic meltdown, Nigeria can no longer afford the presidential system which according to him is too expensive and allows for corruption.
Recall that a group of 60 lawmakers had initiated a move to end the current presidential system and revert to the parliamentary system previously used in Nigeria’s First Republic.
The group, known as the Parliamentary Group, introduced a constitution alteration bill on the floor of the House of Representatives in February setting in motion what could be a transition to a parliamentary system by 2031.
Reacting to this development in an interview with our correspondent on Monday, Chief Lekan-Ojo stressed that the call for return to parliamentary system is a popular opinion amongst Nigerians, adding that only greedy politicians who are benefiting from the present corruption embedded in the Presidential system would oppose such switch.
The APC chieftain explained that the reason he opted for the option is because of the expenses associated with high cost of running governance in the Presidential system.
“The presidential system we are practicing now with the situation in the country, can we truly afford bi-cameral legislature?
“What are the Senate doing differently from what the House of Representatives is doing? So we don’t really need it. In a parliamentary system you only have one house and that one House will still be in place of the Ministers and all that. That one will be better for us. There won’t be too much expenses, there won’t be corruption, there won’t be clash of interest,” he said.
Answering questions on the failure of the parliamentary system in the first republic, the public affairs analyst attributed the failure to lack of experience as Nigeria was still fresh from freedom from British colonization.
“The reason the last parliamentary system in the first republic ran into disaster was because that time, we were still very new into self-governance and that was the problem we faced that time. But now, are we still new to self-governance? That time we just left colony of the British but now we have learnt our lessons.”
Speaking on the issue of State Police, the security expert expressed concerns over the ability of State governors to fund the security outfits without using it as tools to witch-hunt political opponents.
“As a security expert, I should have welcome it but I’m afraid, first the economic situation in the country. Most of the states in this country are not viable, they couldn’t pay 30,000 minimum wage.Some of them are owing ten months, if you are telling those people to come and recruit thousands of State Police, how are they going to fund them?
” Secondly, the democratic mentality of our governors now, are they not going to use these police as political thugs. Where are they going to get the funding from? Is there going to be special security intervention from the federal government? If all those ones will be in place, I don’t think I have problem with it. But if you recruit state police, give them uniform and arm them without paying them, you have empowered them illegally and that could have security concerns” the security expert queried.
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