We Don’t Need Senate, Reps, It’s Expensive To Keep – Shekarau Tells Tinubu

In a bid to reduce the cost of governance, Kano Central Senator, Ibrahim Shekarau has advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reduce the number of federal lawmakers.

Shekarau disclosed this on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Wednesday night, lamenting that Nigeria does not need both Senate and House of Representatives chambers under his administration.

His words:
“Left to me, we don’t need to have the two chambers, the two houses.

“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.”

Note that the composition of the National Assembly is 109 senators and 360 for House of Representatives members.

The former governor of Kano State also stated that fewer parastatals would result in fewer monitoring responsibilities, which would lighten the load on the central government.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

According to him, the Federal Government is spending “so much” at the centre and creating too many agencies and parastatals.

“Unfortunately, we’ve not had leadership that has the courage. There was the Oronsaye report during Jonathan’s time, which has yet to be implemented,” he added

“[Former President Goodluck] Jonathan did not implement it; [former President Muhammadu] Buhari did not implement it.

“The moment you create a parastatal, you’re already talking of board members, chief executive, directors, departments, and the overhead cost of running all these agencies add quite a lot to the expenses of running the government,” he lamented.