Prominent northern elder statesman, Alhaji Aminu Dantata, has reacted to a recent call for Nigeria to transition to parliamentary system of government.
Politics Nigeria reports that 60 lawmakers in the House of Representatives had moved for a constitutional amendment for a change of government from presidential to parliamentary.
Reacting to the move on Thursday, Dantata said parliamentary system of government is more cost effective and less cumbersome.
The nonagenarian stated this when some members of the House of Representatives spearheading the transition move paid him a consultation visit at his Kano residence.
“Parliamentary system is better and cheaper for Nigeria but the presidential system is very costly, especially with the current economic situation in the country,” he said.
Dantata, a member of parliament in the First Republic, lauded the members for taking the bold step and expressed hope that the 60 lawmakers would get more members in the National Assembly to support the project.
“I hope and pray that you will get more members in the assembly to support the project,” he said.
He prayed that the current security challenges bedeviling the country would come to an end.
In an interview with journalists shortly after the courtesy visit, the leader of the delegation and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Kingsley Chinda, said all the members who sponsored the Bill on Nigeria’s return to the parliamentary system remain committed in addition to being sincere in carrying out the project.
“There is no magic that the President and his team can work to cut down drastically this cost. Even where we say we are foregoing all our allowances, you will find out it is just a drop in the ocean. So we need to do something drastic…”
Chinda pointed out that accountability could be better under a parliamentary system than what is obtained today.
“I can tell you that, if we are operating a parliamentary system, with the number of motions and bills that have passed on the floor of the house concerning the issue of insecurity, the Prime Minister would have been asked to vacate his seat and that would have happened. And that would make everybody to sit up.
“Resolutions of the National Assembly sometimes are not taken very seriously, without blaming anybody, but because of the nature of the system that we practice,” he stated.
