Lagos ACN Decries Expensive Legislature, Calls for Part Time Legislature.

Source: pointblanknews.com

The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress has added its voice to the widespread expression of outrage by Nigerians against the expensiveness of the Nigerian legislative tier of government. The party says that for Nigeria to make any meaningful progress, it must cut down on the expensiveness of governance and channel the fund that is wasted on the executive and the legislative tiers of government to providing necessary infrastructures to the people.

In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party suggested that legislative works should be part time so that most of the excess funds that are wasted on the legislature are saved for meaningful productive works for the Nigerian people. It said that a situation where the Nigerian legislature constantly approves fat pays and allowances for its members at random will always make for the thriving of corruption.

“We are shocked to learn that a hefty thirty per cent of our national budget goes to the legislature for works which many Nigerians feel should be part time work. We are shocked to learn that Nigerian legislators are the highest earning legislators in the world. We are shocked to learn that Nigerian legislators individually earn more than the Presidents of most advanced countries in the world for doing next to nothing. We are shocked to learn that Nigerian legislators smile home with a hefty sum of N180 million every year as allowances, outside their salaries in a land bristling with acute poverty and want.

 
“Lagos ACN notes that the country's legislature remains among the most unproductive in the world and has been notorious for the low caliber of members that sit in our parliament. We note that our legislature has been notorious for self fending rather than legislating and protection of their selfish interests while the country flounders aimlessly. We note that governance in Nigeria has been made so expensive that it services the corrupt interest of the few in government and returns horrible results for the Nigerian people who should be the primary beneficiaries of democracy.

“We call on all Nigerians to take more interest in the excess fund the legislature lavishes on itself and stop this reckless hemorrhage that is devastating governance and democracy in Nigeria. We call on Nigerians to rise against this greedy penchant of Nigerians to corner Nigerian resources for themselves while Nigerians lack the most basic essential needs.

“We call for a part time legislature where legislators would earn mere sitting allowances and work for the interests of Nigerians. We call for the setting of a minimum standard entry point to Nigerian legislature to accommodate only those that have other legitimate means of livelihood so as to free the legislature and the country's resources from the predatory grips of greedy legislators who see the country's resources as free food to be feasted on irrespective of the neglected needs of Nigerians.”


 


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