Ondo State-born activist, Omoyele Sowore, says the operation of a bicameral legislative system is detrimental to the economic and political growth of Nigeria.
Sowore, a presidential hopeful under the African Action Congress (AAC) in a post on Twitter, said he would abolish the Senate and divert the public resources saved from there to the education sector of the country.
“The National Assembly in Nigeria is a bicameral legislature established under section 4 of the Nigerian Constitution,” the former student union leader said on Monday. “It consists of a Senate with 109 members and a 360-member House of Representatives.
“If you ask me, we will abolish the Senate because we don’t need the bicameral legislative arm. We can’t afford it.
“That means we change our constitution,” Sowore declared.
He continued: “I have always said that those who are asking for revolution are also asking for a lot of things to change in the constitution. As soon as we win, we go to a constitutional conference where we change the Nigerian Constitution through a referendum and let Nigeria adopt the real constitution because the Constitution as it is now is a fraudulent document created by the military.”
“As Pres of Nigeria, I will work towards scrapping the BiCameral Legislative system, particularly, I will ensure the coven of thieves -@NgSenate Senate is scrapped and funds saved from there invested in Education! #powerofboldideas #SoworeForPresident,” he also tweeted.
In 2018, a former Senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, disclosed that each senator was getting N13.5 million monthly as running costs.
Sani had said: “I think what we can say is that the running cost of a senator is N13.5 million every month.”
Mr Sani said while there is no specific instruction on what the fund should be used for, lawmakers must provide receipts to back up their expenses from the running costs. He added that the running cost is in addition to funds earmarked to each senator for constituency projects.
