Cost of Governance: We Don’t Need Both Senate And Reps, Says Shekarau

The National Assembly is made up of 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members.
The senator representing Kano Central, Ibrahim Shekarau, on Wednesday, decried Nigeria’s high cost of governance, advising President Bola Tinubu on the need to cut down the number of federal lawmakers.
“Left to me, we don’t need to have the two chambers, the two houses,” he said during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“It’s costing the country. I agree, a democracy means getting as many involved as possible, but the way it is going on now, it’s almost 500 legislators nationwide; I don’t think we really need this much at the moment.”
The National Assembly is made up of 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members.
In his opinion of Tinubu’s political will, Shekarau expressed uncertainty, saying, “I wonder if he’ll have the courage to do all the constitutional amendments and go through the process, and reduce all of this.”
The former Kano State governor further argued that cutting the number of parastatals would affect the number of oversight assignments, reducing the burden at the centre.
“Then you’ll discover that the legislative arm will also have to be [downsized] because if there isn’t much to do at the centre, you don’t need all of this sea of hundreds of people really to do oversight assignments,” he said.
“I have been subscribing to the idea of devolution of powers. The Federal Government should really cut its own costs by devolving a lot of these responsibilities down the line, to the states and to the local governments.”
According to him, the Federal Government is spending “so much” at the centre and creating too many agencies and parastatals.
“Unfortunately, we’ve not had leadership that has the courage. There was the Oronsaye report during Jonathan’s time, which has yet to be implemented,” he added.
“[Former President Goodluck] Jonathan did not implement it; [former President Muhammadu] Buhari did not implement it.
“The moment you create a parastatal, you’re already talking of board members, chief executive, directors, departments, and the overhead cost of running all these agencies add quite a lot to the expenses of running the government.”