Monday, July 22, 2024 -Abia North Senator Orji Kalu has proposed that the constitution be amended to reduce federal and state lawmakers’ plenary to four times a year.
Mr Kalu, a former governor of Abia
State, made the proposal in a viral video shared on his verified Facebook page
on Sunday, July 21.
In the video, Mr Kalu, chairman of the
Senate Committee on Privatisation, said the amendment would be part of the
measures to reduce the cost of governance.
He said: “I think it will be a very
good idea if my colleagues and other members of the houses of
assembly will agree that we can sit for three months and do constitutional
amendment first from 2027 to sit three months.
“In three months, we sit for two
weeks or three weeks, so we sit four times a year, and if there is any
emergency, there will be emergency sitting, we can come to do a presidential
bid on that basis and go back instead of sitting on a full-time basis.
“Not only the Senate and the House of
Representatives. I am talking about other houses of assembly in Nigeria. All
the legislature houses of Nigeria will be part-time. This will be part of the
measures to reduce costs, or we will go for a regional government. If we are
going for regional government.”
The former Abia state governor urged
President Bola Tinubu and other members of the National Assembly to develop
legislation that will legalise the part-time legislature system in the country.
He said: “If we are going for a
regional government, it also means that the ministers and the legislators will
be the same because I have been tinkering with the idea of how we can save
money to run Nigeria because Nigeria needs money.
“I will encourage the President, the
National Assembly to make these kinds of laws. This will help him, and this
will help the system, and this will help everybody.”
Kalu also urged his colleagues to
amend the constitution immediately.
“I want Nigerians and my colleagues
to do a quick constitutional amendment so we can go and be a part-time sitting
Senate and part-time sitting House of Representatives and other 36 state houses
of assembly in Nigeria. That will bring trust and relief to the Nigerian
people,” he added.
He also said senators should be paid
a competitive salary.
He specifically said he and his
colleagues at the upper chamber are “paid almost nothing” as salaries.
“We are being paid almost nothing in
the Senate. I sit in the Senate, and when people discuss the salary of a
senator and other people, I laugh because it’s nothing to write home about,”
Orji Uzor Kalu said.
The President of Campaign for
Democracy (CD), Ifeanyi Odili, agreed that the Nigerian legislative system
should be a part-time sitting to reduce the cost of governance.
“In view of present economic
challenges, I think Senator Orji Kalu is not missing the mark as he suggests
that National Assembly business should be part-time work and not full-time.
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