High cost of governance: Kano Senator advised Tinubu to prune down Federal Lawmakers

Senator representing Kano Central Senatorial District, Ibrahim Shekarau has advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reduce the size of the National Assembly lawmakers, saying that it was unnecessary to practice bicameral legislature in Nigeria.

He said, responsibilities should be devolved down the line, to the States and to the Local governments instead of having the upper and lower legislative chambers with so much resources being expended on them.

The former governor of Kano State said this while appearing on Channels Television on Wednesday, saying that the National Assembly (NASS), which is made up of 109 Senators and 360 House of Representatives members was too much to maintain.

Checks by CAPITAL POST reveals that the National Assembly has increased its own budget to N228.1 billion in the 2023 budget, thus making it the biggest budget spender among parliaments in Africa.

Decrying Nigeria’s high cost of governance, Shekarau advised President Tinubu to summon courage, get the Constitution amended and prune down the number of lawmakers, insisting that the nation does not need two Chambers to make laws.

“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.
“I wonder if the President will have the courage to do all the constitutional amendments and go through the process, and reduce all of this,” he said.

According to Shekarau, 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.

“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.”

He observed that the Federal Government is spending “so much” at the centre and creating too many agencies and parastatals.