A legislative body divided into two branches is like a carriage drawn by one horse in front and one behind pulling in opposite direction." –Benjamin Franklin
I must start this short piece with a confession; one which I am ashamed to say. However, not saying it will hurt me more.
I do not know the name, background, or complete details of the person I voted to represent me in our legislative chambers – an act which I regret this day. I have learnt my lesson and trust me it’s not going to ever happen again.
With that said, I think it is time Nigerians, as a matter of urgency, started to focus on the kind of people they send to represent them at the legislature. This is important so we do not ever make the mistake of sending cretins, nuisances, and unashamed narcissists to represent us.
We were hoodwinked by law-making creeps who rode on President Buhari’s goodwill and now exist as a source of embarrassment.
When Nigeria should be focused on getting out of the doldrums she has found herself in due to pummelling from our leaders year after year, especially the last 6 years, some mutton-heads are trying to take us back with their narrow mindedness and selfishness.
The obloquy that we witnessed at the House of Representatives today just goes to show us that the lacuna between these guys, their ambitions, and the good of the people is quite large. This gap solidifies my call for a unicameral legislature.
Unicameral-ism is the system of having a legislature which has one house. It may interest you to know that half of the world’s sovereign States, including the Vatican, practice unicameral-ism. If this is the case, why can’t Nigeria have one as well? I mean why should we waste a massive percentage of our money on those who have no intention of doing what we have sent them to do in the first place.? Why in God’s good earth should we allow more people to milk us? For crying out loud these guys are mercilessly paid and when I say that I mean one of the highest paid legislators in the world, if not the best. Why feed 469 people (who do basically nothing) with what more than a million (or more) of us can live on when we can have far less carrying out exactly the same functions?
While there are so many important things that need to be sorted out, l we cannot afford to continue wasting our money on thugs who are bent on disgracing us
This is a system which will allows efficient lawmaking by making legislation less cumbersome and guaranteeing a simpler process. You are rest assured that there will be unity of purpose and less confusion concerning law making. Instead of having two houses whose impact we rarely feel, why don’t we just reduce it to one so we can have greater efficiency and transparency? With this, we can be guaranteed of some kind of accountability as there would be a few officials for us to monitor.
Because Nigeria is a big country with multiple chambers it allows for guaranteed representation of different ethnic and regional interests. While this is a fair argument, I have some questions. What have you gained from that person you voted to represent you over the years? Can you say with all honesty that you have always had fair representation? Do you even know your rep’s name? Are you ever allowed to contact him? Truth is, we've not really felt the impact of these guys apart from their spending of our collective wealth while doing absolutely nothing. So why keep them?
My two cents are that we have to start thinking of cutting costs (especially one which is of no interest to us) by adopting unicameral-ism. This way we can start channelling the tax payer’s money into what will benefit the ordinary man.
Article credit: Chiechefulam Ikebuiro
email :thalynxis@yahoo.ca
Twitter :@thalynxis on twitter.
