Nigeria can only afford one parliament, says Sani

Shehu Sani, the lawmaker representing Kaduna central senatorial district, has described bicameral legislature as an “economic burden” to Nigeria, saying the country can only afford one parliament.

Commenting on the proposed Nigerian economic conference, Sani advised President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that the conference leads to economic rebirth of the country.

He said the programme must not be a “talk shop for praise singing, partisan sloganeering, ideological stereotyping or platform for finding scapegoats or dedicated pad for missile launching”.

“The proposed economic conference must seek to free our economy from the pressure and weight of our economic burdens,” he said in a statement.

“We should abolish the 36 states structure and come out with 6 states in line with the geopolitical zones with Abuja remaining the capital.

“We should abolish the bicameral national assembly with its economic burden and duplication and multiplicity of responsibilities. Nigeria need and can only afford one parliament

“We must make the necessary constitutional amendments which will reduce the number of ministers and ministries.

“We must as a nation and as a people accept the fact that President Buhari must succeed in restoring Nigeria back on track or else the nation will be heading to a revolution.

“The conference must seek to practically address and proffer pragmatic solutions to rescuing our country from its prevalent status of economic paralysis.

“The proposed economic conference must be result oriented aimed at setting a road map for our economic revival, growth, diversification and prosperity. The conference can only make a difference if it can fundamentally lead to the economic restructuring of Nigeria and end the existing federal allocation federalism.

“We cannot continue to run a country on states running to Abuja cap in hand just to be able to pay wages of their civil servants.

“The proposed economic summit must advanced from the platitude of anti corruption crusade to setting a workable agenda for the government, the private sector and the masses of Nigerians towards economic prosperity, emancipation and social justice.

“The conference must not aimed at producing volumes of books of proceedings which will eventually be kept to dust but must produce simple documents which will lead to our economic resurgence and rebirth.

“The proposed economic conference must proffer solution that will address class iniquity, social exclusion and systemic plunder of the Nigerian state by foreign multinational interest in league with their Nigerian collaborators known in business parlance as partners.

“The proposed economic conference must proffer solution on how to rescue the agric sector from perennial neglect, bureaucratic bottlenecks and pervasive corruption: we must seek to advance solid mineral exploration and upgrade public education to the same standard with private education.”

Sani advised the government to learn from countries making progress, calling for restructuring of the federation.

“We must take useful lessons from emerging economies in Asia and Latin America. The conference must trigger an “Export Nigeria Revolution” to address our foreign exchange and foreign reserve challenges,” he said.

“It’s also impossible to implement any serious economic reforms without making fundamental political restructuring of the federation. Our economy was to a larger extent stagnated and crushed under the weight of unjustifiable and unreasonable political burden and liabilities.

“We have lived through decades of self denial and self deception. We destroyed our economy after decades of politics of patronage and cronyism. Governments in the past were simply political institutions structured for self service and dispensing favors to members of our ethnic, religious class affiliations .Our political leaders exploited the default in our political order and the availability and accessibility of public funds and plundered the state treasury for themselves and their family members.”