I SEE A BIG CLOUD HANGING OVER NIGERIA – ELDER STATESMAN MBAZULIKE AMAECHI (PART 4)

Away from state creation, which other issue do you think the national conference should address this time?

One, the cost of governance under the presidential system is very high. I think the
country should go back to the parliamentary system of government. It will also help to check corruption and ineptitude in government. With a good understanding, it might get to a stage where the presidency is zoned either by agreement or consensus to a particular area. And because it is zoned to them, they produce a president who is not a national leader. And he goes into office. The country will

suffer. But in parliamentary system of government, if a prime minister is corrupt or unable to control corruption in his government, to remove him from office they only need a majority of one vote in parliament. But in the presidential system, you need to get two third majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, which is impossible. So if you have a corrupt or inept president, there is no way you can remove him from office. But when a prime minister can no longer run an effective government, the parliament meets, passes a vote of confidence. With a single majority of one vote in parliament, he is out. That is one. Two, we need a constitution that will not give absolute total power to the prime minister. But there should be some reserved powers for the president. It should not be like the Balewa era where the president had no powers at all. No. This time around, some things like the electoral commission or such impartial bodies can be enrolled for him. These bodies should not be under the control of the head of government; the head of a political party. That is one. Secondly, the government of course should be a government. Can you see what is happening now? A minister is appointed with permanent secretaries in the offices. The permanent secretaries have their own staff. The minister has many special advisers, special Assistants, senior special assistants, security details from virtually all the arms of the security services and so on. I was a minister for six years in Nigeria. All I had was a private secretary. And that private secretary in our own time will be a person nominated by you but he must be a civil servant. You look into the civil service and pick one of them as your private secretary, and he is posted to you. If he is on a low scale, he is raised. So, we did not have public relations men or publicity secretaries attached to a minister. If a minister is given a special adviser on a subject in whom he is a principal adviser to the president of the country, is it not anomalous? Take the minister of education for instance; he is supposed to be the president’s eye in managing education, and the first adviser to the president on matters of education. Why does he need a special adviser again? You are the man handling education, and you want somebody to advise you on education? These are areas of waste. If a minister for example is travelling to his hometown, on a private visit, or even on a constituency tour or whatever, he goes with one car, official car, back support car, front car, security car, press car, pilot cars etc. They are about eight cars. So it costs a Nigerian tax payer about N10 million in two or three days. In our time, all a minister had was a police orderly: Just a police orderly, no SSS man. What are you doing with SSS man? SSS people are supposed to compile their reports and send them to the prime minister, or the president. They don’t report to the minister. So why attach them to the minister? And with a retinue of policemen and pilot car? No. A minister going home or anywhere goes in one car. We were only assigned one vehicle, one official vehicle with a driver. The government gives you an advance to buy a car if you want another car, and it is deducted from your salary for your four years. The whole money of the country is being wasted on personnel costs and administrative expenses under the presidential system. So, save the country from corruption and massive stealing, we must return to the parliamentary system of government, whereby the head of government can be easily removed by the House.

To be continued tomorrow..

Culled from Sunday sun