Scrap Senate, implement Oronsaye report – Fayemi

• Roots for unicameral legislature

The Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has called for the scrapping of the Senate to reduce the size of governance even as stressed that based on the current economic realities, the type of legislative system that would really work for the country  “is a  unicameral legislature.”

Currently, Nigeria’s national assembly consists of a Senate with 109 members and a 360-member  House of  Representatives.

He spoke at one of the panel sessions on the sidelines of the 25th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit with the theme, ‘Nigeria 2050: Shifting gears.’

The session was attended by the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Babatunde Fowler; Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries, Jordi Borrut Bel, and the Country Manager of the International Finance Corporation, Eme Essien.

Fayemi also said the Stephen Oronsaye committee report that recommended the scrapping and merging of some agencies of the Federal Government should be considered.

According to him,  “We do need to look at the size of government in Nigeria and I am an advocate of a unicameral legislature. What we really need is the House of  Representatives,  because that is what represents.

“You have three senators from little Ekiti and you have three senators from Lagos state.

“It’s a no-brainer that it’s unequal, I guess the principle is not proportionality but that if you are a state, you get it automatically.

“But I think that we can do away with that. There are several things that we can do away with within the government.

“The Oronsaye report that proposed mergers of several Ministries Departments and Agencies that are doing the same thing is something that the government should pay serious attention to and reduce the resources being expended on them.”

On the issue of security vote, Fayemi said this was not peculiar to Nigeria alone as it existed in various forms across the world.

He added, “The important thing is the government utilises a wide range of mechanisms to guarantee security in a state and it is not just ammunition and weapons that I am talking about.”