Group advocates abolition of bi-camera legislature

A socio-religious organization, the Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, MMWG, has called for the abolition of bi-camera legislature in the country in order to reduce the cost of governance and enhance effective performance of the National Assembly.

According to the group, the two chambers of the National Assembly –the Senate and House of Representatives, should be collapsed into one to save the country’s economic resources from being wasted.

MMWG, in a statement signed by its national coordinator, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate amendments to the Nigerian Constitution with a view to expunging certain laws that are deleterious to the nation’s economy.

Beside the proposed abolition of bi-camera legislature, he also stressed the need to stop severance package for public office holders and pension packages for the governors who served for eight years.

Abdullahi, who lamented the heavy pressure on the nation’s economy, further called for the reduction in the number of government’s ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs noting that some of them ought to be merged since they perform almost the same functions.

He said politics should be made less attractive while bureaucracy should be made small to save cost for other sectors of the economy that would help in enhancing the country’s development and improved living standard of the people.

The group also called on President Buhari to make the restoration of power stability, employment of youth, improved anti-corruption fight, overhauling of the educational and health system for the benefit of all Nigerians a top priority in his second term.

On insecurity, it noted that “the Police and the Army appears capable of fighting insecurity if their numerical strength is increased by at least 100 percent, training and retraining of their personnel with incentives and adequate logistics”.

Abdullahi also appealed to the President to assist many retirees who served the country for 35 meritorious years but are being owed gratuities and pensions in about 27 states, saying it’s right to deny the senior citizens their entitlements for too long.

He said now that politics are over, governors and party leaders should focus on delivery of dividends of democracy failure of which no one will be able to save them from the masses if they refuse to perform.