From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

The Secretary-General of the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) has pushed for a unicameral legislature in the National Assembly with a view to reducing the cost of governance in Nigeria.

In a telephone chat with Daily Sun, Dr Kunle Olajide said the country has no business to have a bicameral legislature in the National Assembly, which has 109 members of the senate and 360 members of the House of Representatives, making a total of 469 members.

Olajide stated that in the unicameral legislature, three persons should be made to represent each state of the federating units in the National Assembly.

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According to him, “We have no business having a bicameral legislature in the National Assembly. There are 469 people that are members of both House of Representatives and the Senate. What are they doing there? The power should reside in the federating units.

“We have state assemblies that make laws and state laws should be policed by state police. There are a lot of things that needed to be changed. We don’t need more than a unicameral legislature and perhaps three people per the federating units.”

Olajide recalled that in the 1958 and 1963 constitutions of Nigeria, only 16 items were on the Exclusive Legislative List for the Federal Government, with the Federal Capital Territory in Lagos then, saying: “What do we have today? There are 66 items on the Exclusive Legislative List, that if you want to marry in your local government, Abuja has to approve. So, you can see how ridiculous we have been.”