‘Nigeria can save 40 per cent running cost in parliamentary system’

Member representing Akamkpa/Biase Federal Constituency of Cross River State in the House of Representatives, Daniel Asuquo, has called for the parliamentary system of government for Nigeria.

The two-term lawmaker from Akamkpa local government area, who is seeking a return to the House on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), told reporters in Calabar that the presidential system currently in place was not appropriate for the country and also encourages a lot of waste in expenditure.

The lawmaker said up to 40 per cent of the running cost of government can be saved if it was a parliamentary system.

“In fact I am one of those that think that the presidential system we are running is not good for Nigeria. We should go back to the parliamentary system. There are too many gains we can get from this. One, the cost of running government would be less. Two, the corruption would be reduced and the issues about conflict of sovereignty or power play between the three tiers of government would be respected. Right now as it is, the executive is trying to overlord the judiciary and legislature, which is not supposed to be so. The executive is now playing the big brother. So anything the executive does is not wrong, but any little wrongs of the judiciary or legislature is being amplified as if that is where the problem is.

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“The greater waste in government is in the executive. I am a member of the appropriation committee. We appropriate. We oversight. So we know the huge waste in our budget is in the executive. I give you an example. Every year if you look at the budgets recurrent expenditure which has overheads and all that, you see repetition of the same things year in year out, and you go on oversight and you don’t see any of those things being done. So you also see a retinue of appointees that people don’t even need. So if we go to a parliamentary system, you as a Minster is coming from the parliament. There are statutory staff that parliamentarians have, four or five for the senate. It is statutory, you don’t add anything. But in the executive a Minster can have up to 30 staff. Governors can have up to 200 or 1000.

“In fact we would save 40 per cent of expenditure on recurrent and overhead. Running cost of government is very expensive in the presidential system.”

Asuquo also stressed the need for the country to be restructured.

“We should extend the discourse of Nigeria being looked at as a marriage that we need to amend. Restructuring is the only fair thing that can happen. Few days ago they discovered oil in Bauchi to be precise. The president was there to commission the first drilling. It was oil in commercial quantity. Nigeria in due course, you will see that that discussion people are running away from, they will have to face it.

“They are running away from it because they had used the military era properly in designating constituencies that put them in advantage in the National Assembly. There is no equity even in that National Assembly. I grew up in the north, so I know those areas. If we talk about fairness, even in the distribution of the national wealth, I think it is lopsided. So now that the north has started to produce oil, the discussion is going to be very interesting,” Asuquo said.