[The Injustice Blog] Nigeria has to put an end to its bicameral legislature

According to Wikipedia, a bicameral legislature is one in which the legislators are divided into two separate assemblies, chambers or houses. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all of the members deliberate and vote as a single group, and from some legislatures which have three or more separate assemblies, chambers or houses.

Research shows that as at 2015, less than half of legislative arms in the world are bicameral. Unicameralism is preferred to Bicameralism on the basis of fast legislative process, harmonize district representations among others.

In Nigeria, we practice the bicameral legislature as adopted from the United states. As a result, we have the House of Representatives with 360 members, and the Senate which houses 109 members making it 469 members.

However several years after, it’s time for Nigerians to decide if we really want the bicameral legislative system.

There have been debates for and against the abolishment of the bicameral legislature in Nigeria. But, the National Assembly members have insisted that both chambers should be maintained as they don’t perform the same functions. As the campaign for the restructuring of the country is increasing daily, I think we need a campaign for the review of our bicameral legislative system too.

A cursory look at both chambers of the Nigerian National Assembly has shown that they are duplicating their duties, as they both make laws, amend laws, perform oversight functions on Ministries Department and Agencies.

As a result, both chambers set up Committees for the same MDAs, for example, the House of Representatives has a committee on Appropriation same as the Senate among other several Committees which is a duplication of duty.

Also, the financial requirements of the two chambers in Nigeria is a source of concern to all Nigerians. Year in year out, the two chambers budget billions of Naira for spending which are not necessarily in the interest of the citizens just as found in the 6.1 Billion Naira the House of Representatives is spending on purchase of new vehicles. A commensurate amount was budgeted for the Senate too.

In a country where the poverty level is on the increase, the continuous usage of the bicameral legislature for our law making process is a burden on innocent tax payers and it’s high time we take off this burden by adopting unicameralism as found in developed countries of the world.

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