By Precious Oham
An Ekiti-born Councillor, who recently won the local election in Stevenage Borough Council in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, Akin Elekolusi has called for the reintroduction of the parliamentary system of government in Nigeria but with slight adjustment to fit the peculiarity of the nation.
In a telephone interview with journalists, the Efon-Alaaye politician, who won the councillorship seat on the platform of Labour Party said the presidential system of government is quite expensive for Nigeria and has not yielded the desired result.
He advocated the incorporation of the traditional institution and the viability of the local government aimed at ensuring that development gets to the grassroots.
He said:”I have always felt over the years that the presidential system of government is quite expensive for Nigeria to actually practise. I’m not surprised that some people are clamoring for the parliamentary system because the presidential system have a lot of layers of bureaucracy, expenses in governance but the parliamentary system is more cheaper in terms of numbers of people and offices you need to create.
“But we need to fashion a system that is actually suited to the ideals of what we stand for as a people and as a culture. By this, I am thinking of incorporating our traditional rulers to the concept of Nigeria, they have a role to play at that local level. They have much more significant role to play.
“We can fashion out a system, it’s like a hybrid parliamentary system but we would better not copy line for like, we will just adapt it to suit our own political framework and I think this is where missed it in the past and I think if we will fashion out a new system going forward, it will embrace something like that but there will be a Nigerian slant on it to actually suit our own political framework.
“We can’t dissociate the traditional institutional system in Nigeria away from governors and local levels, they have a serious role to play and at the same time, we need to realize that the local government is supposed to be the most impactful arm of government not central.
“The differences are so glaring, we used to practice the British system in the 60s before the 1966 coup. We practiced cabinet system of government, that was when it was autonomous when development was impacting directly in the grassroots area in Nigeria because it was just a central government which didn’t have as much power as it has today in Nigeria and most of the resources were allowed to be distributed based on whatever the region generated and those regions used their resources very well to develop themselves.
“That’s how a lot of things like Cocoa house, roads, free education happened but bringing it forward, this is the major difference we have.
“In the UK system, we have the National government but all the power is not concentrated into that central government. It revolves around the regions and the local councils as well. There is no middle tier like we have in Nigeria where we have the state governors, and local governments.
“This is where the governors here as I can relate to it, are much more effective because when money is disbursed, it’s not filtered down to the layers, it just come directly to the local councils and the local councils have power to generate funds as well and they will go about implementing the development ideals of the policies they have.
“If you go around the U.K., you will find out that the infrastructure, the country is not uneven and imbalance. There are a lot of mental aspirations in government at the national level and this is filtered down in terms of directives to the local council to implement it broadly across the country.
“I think this is the lesson we need to learn in Nigeria as well because I think we can do it in such a way because democracy is all about grassroot development.
“It’s the local government that impact most on the masses. There are ways around these where we can do our practices better. We should make sure that local government carry out directives as laid down for the state government, it’s very imperative.”
In the meantime, Akin Elekolusi suggested full autonomy for local government and the need for government to embrace ICT to cut down bureaucratic bottle neck and cost of governance.
He was also of the support that State Independent Electoral Commissions should be scrapped while INEC should take charge of elections.