Mr John Matthew, a legal practitioner, says the presidential system of government is not working for Nigeria.
“In my view, the presidential system in practice and my honest assessment, they are not working well for us,” said while speaking on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily, on Friday.
The lawyer suggested that Nigeria should consider reverting to a parliamentary system.
“Nigeria should think quite seriously about going back to a parliamentary system, where you have elected representatives of the people coming to parliament, and within the parliament, a government is formed and the majority form the government there and parliamentarians sit part-time,” he said.
He pointed out the need to address the high cost of governance, specifically lamenting the large cabinet under President Bola Tinubu.
“We also need to consider the humongous cost of governance. I was hoping that President Tinubu was going to be different. I can see now for the first time we are having this number of large cabinets, what are they going to be doing?” he said.
Matthew questioned the roles and functions of some members of the cabinet within the government, especially the Ministry of Police Affairs.
“Take for example the ministry of police affairs. You have a police council, an Inspector General of Police, a Minister of Police and a Minister of State for Police. What are their functions? What are they going to be doing other than just providing jobs for patronage?” he said.
He also raised concerns about the expenses incurred by National Assembly members, especially in acquiring luxury vehicles.
“I was reading quite recently about the vehicles the National Assembly members were buying for themselves. In this situation, the kind of hunger that I see daily, there can’t be any other reason other than the fact that it is not an acceptable expenditure.
“Even if they needed to do something like that, why not patronize and encourage local manufacturers?” Matthew said.
