Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune in Ilorin on Monday, the former lawmaker said that there could not be serious governance without a vibrant political system.
“There can’t be serious governance without a vibrant political system. Political parties, right from word go, should have a political manifesto. And any serious party would think of election and what happens in future of the party and future of the society. Ideology is what sustains a political party. It was four cardinal programme of UPN under Chief Obafemi Awolowo that made us win elections. It was not mere propaganda then as elected and party officials work towards implementation and bringing about dividends of the programmes through conscious efforts of the party and elected members.
“There’s nothing like that now. With the entire cult-like followership of Buhari, there’s no adherence to party programmes and thus you see the party in disarray. There’s no party discipline. That would not happen with a party that was there in those days. Even shagari with all the faults, NPN had their own programmes then which is agriculture. Without strong political party in place, you can’t have good government. And it’s good and experienced leadership that can attract a good party system. In those days, people like Tai Solarin, Wole Soyinka and the like were the ones in the background churning out ideas, position papers on education, agriculture, etc for the guidance of the party and it is this that party members would debate and come up with their own working ideologies.
“In spite of the goodwill that Buhari has, I can’t see any difference now. Except for the fact that people are afraid of stealing public funds, which is not really total, things are still the same old story,” he said.
The Awoist, who criticised the current political system in the country, advocated a part-time legislature in the country to curb wastages. Saying that the presidential system of government should be discontinued and adopt parliamentary system.
“The situation we’ve found ourselves is that of our own making. There’s no way you can stop members of the Houses or National Assembly from struggling to collect or get fat money or dig their hands in public treasury funds in the country unless we get out of this system we’re running presently. You see, the legislature should be part-time. Having legislators on a full-time basis is just a waste of resources. Where you spend more than 70 percent of your resources on political office holders would not make us have any headway. This is the money that should be spent on infrastructural development, industrialisation and we’re just frittering. And how do you blame them, when they borrow, sell their property before they get elected. When they are elected, surely, they’d want to recoup their investment. It is the system that’s bad and should be looked into and we should get out if it. If not, it will be a recurring decimal. What is saying is that it should be on part-time. We should do away with the presidential system of government. We have no business doing that. The value system has broken down completely. The type of value system in America where we borrowed presidential system of government is operating, can’t be compared with ours. Things were much better yesterday than today. Values were there. I shed tears sometimes when I travel from Ilorin to Kabba. In those days, you see business owners along the road like Omu Aran etc with booming businesses, now you see old people, goats, and cows. There’s been a terrible migration to the urban centers from rural areas. That’s a dangerous trend because people in urban centers are struggling to survive there and won’t think about their homes and the place is neglected. So let’s legislature be part-time.
The most important job of the legislature is the budget. Oversight function is also important because it keeps tabs on an executive, but the allocation of funds, money is crucial in a poor economy for instance. Within 90 days, the legislature should be able to finish up with budget and go back to their constituency to do oversight function. That would make it cheaper. If not they’d compete with executive, saying they contested and commissioner or minister didn’t contest the election and thus why should they earn more than them.
Politicians should have Means of livelihood, Yes! If not they’d be tempted to do wrong things. You’d always be thinking of personal economy. Human beings naturally think of personal economy first. He would think of how he’d survive and feed his family. If there’s no alternative as something to fall back to, there’s trouble, big trouble.
and then