NIGERIA’S NEEDLESS PROPOSAL FOR NEW GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS By Omilo
For many days now, Nigeria has been thrown into a state of debate for or against the return to the parliamentary system of government as was practiced in the first republic. The bill sponsored by the minority leader in the nation’s House of Representatives, Hon. Kingsley Chinda has about 59 other members in support of the move. It has so far past the first reading. Barring any other unforeseen obstacle, the suggestion will be going into second reading any moment from the 21st day of February, 2024.
These sixty law makers have advanced the reasons for the move. According to them, it will reduce the cost of governance. Number Two, if finally accepted, in line with the proposal, it will equally attract credibility to Nigeria’s electoral system. And thirdly, the new system will guaranty the assemblage of the ministers from among the members of parliament. The sponsors add the fact that the system will ensure seamless election of the Prime Minister from among the legislative arm of government as well.
While the house members were putting finishing touches to their proposal, the elected governors of the 36 states of the federation were busy fine-tuning the matching order given to them to fashion out ways of creating state police to complement the efforts of the Nigeria Police in combating crimes in the country. In line with this, the governors are presently working on setting up state police in various states with commissioners to be appointed by the state governors. To ensure credibility, the state Chief Executives are to approve appointments based on the recommendations of the Police Service Commission.
Beautiful as these proposals are, the nation does not need them now. The reasons for this are not far-fetched. To begin with, the establishment of grass root police has never been part of the reasons advanced by the Nigeria Police as being responsible for ineffective operations. Rather, issues such as poor funding, failure to deploy modern crime fighting technologies, training of officers and lack of motivation among others have always featured as some of the factors militating against effective policing in Nigeria.
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It has become overdue for all the state police formations to have state and departmental training centres for the training and retraining of officers and men of Nigeria Police. Though it failed in the 80s, the idea of posting men of the force to their states and possibly local government of origin should be considered as an option. This will of course be in addition to addressing all the complaints of the federal security agency.
If federal government is finding it tough to fund the police adequately, it certainly will be tougher for state governments, especially those that are yet to implement the N30,000 minimum wage that have been in force since 2019. Many of them cannot even boast of being up-to-date with the payment of pensions to the retired folks.
As for the proposal for the return to parliamentary system of democracy, it can best be described as another cheap way of shying away from the nation’s real challenges in the pursuit of good governance. For good analysis and comparisons, Chinda and his colleagues should do well to provide Nigerians with facts and figures relating to the present cost of governance. In addition, they should also include what they think the figures are likely to be after jettisoning the presidential system copied from America.
Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that parliamentary system will provide the needed integrity required from the Nigerian politicians, just as it is not convincing enough to expect the legislative arm to have all the competent persons that can be trusted with the positions of head of government and ministers. The likes of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Okonjo-Iweala, Wole Olanipekun, Yemi Edun and others may not consider Senate of house of Representative positions good enough to accommodate them should they fail to become members of the executive arm also.
Completely introducing new systems in security and democratic style will pose greater challenges than their proponents envisage. Therefore, the nation should rather work on the possibility of either embracing the presidential system as really practice in the US or create from it a system that can be referred to “Nigerian Presidential System” of government with content reflecting the peculiar nature of the country.