LAGOS – Some Nigerians on Monday in Lagos expressed mixed reactions to the recommendation by the National Conference that legislators’ functions should be on part-time basis to reduce cost of governance.
One of the respondents, the National Chairman of Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD), Malam Yusuf Buba, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the delegates’ recommendation was ‘timely’.
“It is good at least it will discourage so many money bags from being desperate about going to the National Assembly. It will be only good for people who really want to make their inputs.
“But on the other hand, it will not make any difference if the people do not change their attitude towards corruption.
“Because, once the people going are corrupt, whether it is part time or full time, they will still be corrupt.
“We also have to know the details.
“What are the modalities for the part time? Is it that they will come in, spend one week and go back to their constituency or until when they will seat again?
“And then how will it affect the output from the national assembly, their bills their legislation and so on?’’
However, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) Malam Auwal Musa (also known as Rafsanjani), said that Nigeria needed a full-time legislation.
“The way things are in Nigeria, we need the National Assembly on full-time if we want to have a robust oversight on the executive in terms of policy, programmes and legislation compliance.
“But what we need to do is to reduce the unnecessary spending on the legislature and make it unattractive for all the elective positions.’’
The delegates at the National Conference had on June 4, unanimously adopted the recommendation of the Committee on Public Service.
The committee also called for the review of the salaries of the legislators to ensure that their allowances are comparable with what obtained in other arms of the public service.
