Less than two weeks ago news hit the
media about how the lower House in
Senegal approved a law which seeks to
scrap the Senate of that country. Then,
questions were raised whether that
kind of an issue could possibly be
considered by Nigerian lawmakers, and
if it was, if they could ever bring it to
reality. Well, it seems something like that
might just be considered – even if it is
just to get our senators on their toes.
The idea, interestingly, is coming from
former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju
Ahmed Tinubu, himself a former senator
whose wife is also a serving senator!
Tinubu is now advocating for only one
National Assembly, saying having two
Assemblies is consuming the funds of
the country.
Tinubu particularly called for the
cancellation of the Senate, stressing that
they are only performing similar
functions which the House of
Representatives would have done
successfully. He was speaking at the
2012 annual conference and awards
ceremony of Leadership Newspapers
Group in Abuja.
According to him, “we have kept
complaining about the cost of
governance and the recurrent
expenditure…but we have never
examined the structural problems of
even the constitution that we are
operating… Why do we need two
houses of National Assembly when
House of Representatives represent
smaller constituencies enough in the
same number of population? Why not
get rid of the Senate? To equip better
and effective legislative activities, let us
start examining that.”

Source:
www.informationigeria.org/