Renown elder statesman, Professor Ango Abdullahi has pledged his support for Nigeria’s return to Parliamentary system of government.
He expressed the support when members of House of Representatives who sponsored the bills seeking the return to Parliamentary system led by Hon. Abdulsamad Dasuki and Hon. Wale Raji visited him in his Abuja residence weekend.
He noted that the military were behind the pressure on the Constituent Assembly of 1976/77 to adopt either a French or American Presidential system of government.
He however informed the lawmakers that since 1976 he never gave up on the Parliamentary system of government as it provides ground for accountability and quality leadership.
He stressed that the Parliamentary system of government as practiced in 1963 was not given sufficient time to thrive in the country.
According to him, the Nigerian project is not working because we forgot history and decided not to learn lessons.
Professor Abdullahi who was a member of the First Republic Parliament maintained that when it was practiced in the first Republic, the Parliamentary system of government worked for all and sundry.
He noted that the current Presidential system of government has failed to yield desired results over the past 24 years.
He said, “If you are talking of failure of the system, it’s totally unfair to say that Parliamentary system failed in Nigeria. It has not. Only that it has not been given sufficient time.
“So, my personal position is that, I’m 100 percent against the presidential system of government, it’s an unsuitable system not only for Nigeria, but any country that is in this reckless, greedy western world. Because the democracy the western world is trying to force down the throat of every nation in the world is to serve their interest. And check honestly, academically, materially and so on, see what happened since 1960 till date.
“For me, if I’m going to react to your visit, I’ll react in two ways. The first level is my own personal conviction. I’m a product of the first republic and I cherished being that product, as a teacher who marks exams from A1 to failure, I’ll mark the Pioneer Leaders as A1, up to the present leadership F10.
“So when the military came and insisted that we should abandoned what was kicked out in 1966, I think was the first major mistake this country ran into up till now.”
He further maintained that Presidential system is not a suitable system for the country as it has failed to address the fundamental issues affecting the country.
He added, “For 24 years now, you just show me where is the presidential system succeeds in terms of moving Nigeria forward? A country with 200 million that is generating 4000 megawatt of electricity. 4000 megawatt not enough for a big house in Europe?”
Professor Abdullahi who commended the lawmakers for the campaign for the return to Parliamentary system said he will support the actualisation of the return to the system.
Speaking earlier, Hon. Wale Raji who posted that the cost of governance.and election is higher under the Presidential system of government than the Parliamentary system of government.
He noted that Presidential system of government “is quite expensive for our economy situation and it has hindered the desired economic development that the country deserves. And we also discovered that it’s too cumbersome and it has not really lead us to derive the benefit of true democracy unlike what is obtained in the parliamentary system of government where the cost of governance us reduced.
“The government is closer to the people and accountable. We are all aware of the fact that the Prime Minister is from the Parliament and there’s regular interaction and it promotes accountability and the cost of running our elections, if you look at since 1999, how much the presidential election apart from the individual running for the position, the cost to the country but under the parliamentary that will be drastically reduced,” Hon. Raji noted.
While arguing that the current Presidential system of government has not been beneficial to Nigeria as expected, Hon. Raji assured that the Parliamentary system of government being advocated will be an homegrown system with Nigerian content so as to suit our situation.
He disclosed that the delegation had earlier interacted with Alhaji Dantata who was a member of the First Republic Parliament, as well as Chief Bisi Akande who pledged their support.
In his remarks, Hon. Abdulsamad Dasuki said: “part of our proposals we have one bill for Local Government, one for the State, and one for Federal. And in one of our proposals, by God’s grace, in the year 2027, we will like to kickstart with full autonomy and implementation of Local Government itself, so that we can be well-guided. That was why you must have heard in the papers the commencement date.
“Our target was we can learn from implementing in phases. The first phase is with INEC, which even if it’s not from these particular sponsors, but a Colleague of ours has sponsored a bill in the House of Representatives and has passed the Second Reading which said we should have only one election in Nigeria instead of two elections. And I think that bill was unanimously passed in the House. It’s part of the things we are looking at moving forward.
“Like he said, we are here to learn, what we are trying to do for Nigeria is to build Nigeria for Nigerians looking at our peculiarities.”
