Popular business Mogul, Aminu Dantata, has disclosed that the Parliamentary system of leadership being advocated by some legislators is Nigeria’s best bet.
Dantata made this disclosure when some members of the House of Representatives led by the Minority leader, Kingsley Chinda, paid him advocacy visit at his residence in Kano recently.
Dantata said: “Thank you very much for coming to my house: I pray for the success of this gigantic movement.
“Parliamentary system is better for this country as it is much cheaper while presidential is too expensive.
“I pray you have the support of your colleagues and pray Allah should give you wisdom and guide you to achieve this noble job in assisting this country.”
“The 60 people we have now by the grace of God we are going to continue to get more and more. I pray Allah should help us, Nigeria needs a different atmosphere than what we are today. Our country has been highly dis developed so we are praying Allah gets us out of this problem.”
Before Dantata’s disclosure, the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda said: “Myself and 59 others sponsored 3 bills yesterday and the spirit and intent of those bills are to take our country from presidential system back to parliamentary system. And the reasons are simple, we cannot be doing the same thing and expect a different result. The way things are going and everybody is complaining, Nigerians are worried that the cost of governance is skyrocketing. And there is no magic that the President and his team can work to cut down drastically this cost.
“Even where we say we are forgoing all our allowances, you will find out it is just a drop in the ocean. So we need to do something that is drastic because our country is dock tailing.
“We sat down, thought through and concluded that one out of the several solutions to our problem should be to take a system of government that is manageable to our system. Considering our population, we need a lot of funds and then, we need to conserve these funds.
“Aside from that, I can tell you that decision making is easier under a parliamentary system as against what we have today.
“Accountability is better under a parliamentary system as against what we have today. I can tell you that, if we are operating a parliamentary system, with the number of motions and bills that have been taken on the floor of the house concerning the issue of insecurity, the Prime Minister would have been asked to vacate his seat and that would have happened. And that would make everybody sit up.
“Resolutions of the National Assembly sometimes are not taking very seriously without blaming anybody but because of the nature of the system that we practice. That is why we are proposing that the time has come for us to work outside the box and take that leap and reintroduce a parliamentary system of government in this country that will help us begin to solve a lot of the problems that we have in Nigeria.
“We pray that Nigerians will understand our position and also support this position and urge their members (both Senators and House of Representatives) to key into this project.”
While talking about the consequences, Dantata said the project would rather consolidate the unity of Nigeria rather than threaten it.
He said: “If I ask you today, from the political parties what are the political ideologies, you will find out that they are almost not there. But if you have a parliamentary system of government, the political ideologies will be strengthened, political party discipline will be strengthened and members will bond stronger together as a nation. We will de-emphasize the issues of tribe, religion because what holds us together will be stronger than that.
“We are not speaking for ourselves, we are doing this for ourselves, we are doing this for our country, Nigeria. And Nigerians ought to understand the essence, purpose, advantage and reasons why they should come to be.
“You will understand why we drifted away from the parliamentary system because it was not a civil issue, it happened as a military incursion. So it was not the will of the people to drift away. And if you also look at the constitution that brought us into the presidential system, the major complaint is that that constitution is not a constitution that ensures from the people of Nigeria. I can tell you that if it were the people we would not have drifted into the presidential system.”
