Nigeria’s presidential system a waste, says group

A group known as City Gate Elders of Nigeria in Benin on Thursday called for the return of the country to the parliamentary system of government for the sake of political stability, noting that the presidential system practised in the country was a big waste.

The chairman of the group, Dr. Dele Oluwatade, a medical practitioner, in a paper, entitled, ‘Reengineering Nigeria for a Stable Political Equilibrium’, said a borrowing nation like Nigeria cannot afford the extravagance of the presidential system of government.

He said that Nigeria should be restructured into twelve or eight regions with premiers as the heads of each region for easy administration and reduction in the cost of governance.

“A massive borrowing nation is warming up for awareness on presidential
style of campaigns and elections.

“Meanwhile, our youths are out of school due to the ASUU strike and JAMB is conducting another exam to admit another set of youths into a locked system, and the government is sourcing for four trillion. This is ‘functional confusion par excellence’.

“Our nation is on a borrowing spree. We borrow to pay for fuel subsidies. A compulsorily consumption economy that is tipping towards insolvency is organizing an electoral process to waste human and material resources, organizing an election for a knocked nation.”

He said the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) should constitute a committee to transmute to a prime minister, urging him to redeem his public image by restructuring Nigeria and thereby killing many birds with one wise political stone.

Oluwatade chided Nigerian politicians, whom he said were living larger than the Nigerian economy, while the masses were suffering.