A prominent member of the All Progressives Congress and former Assistant Publicity Secretary of the APC in Lagos, Abiodun Salami, has advocated for the adoption of a unicameral legislative system in Nigeria to reduce the cost of governance.
His remarks were made during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.
Salami’s comments come amid growing calls for Nigeria to abandon its current bicameral National Assembly in favor of a unicameral legislature.
A unicameral legislature consists of a single legislative chamber, unlike a bicameral legislature, which includes two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Several countries, including China, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, operate under a unicameral legislative system.
Salami proposed merging the Senate and the House of Representatives to form a single legislative body and reducing the number of legislators to streamline governance and cut costs. He stated that maintaining both the Senate and the House of Representatives is financially burdensome for the country.
“Bi-cameral legislature is wasteful. We can merge the Senate and the House of Representatives to have a single house to ease the business of lawmaking and reduce the huge funds spent to maintain the two chambers that we have now,” Salami said. “We can merge the two chambers and then reduce the number of lawmakers. The country spends a lot maintaining the 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives.”
Highlighting the current economic challenges facing Nigeria, Salami emphasized the need for sacrifices and bold steps to address the situation. He described the bicameral legislature as “frivolity” given the economic context.
