Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has made case for a hybrid constitutional system that would draw from the benefits of presidential and parliamentary systems of government.
He also stressed the need for effective and responsible opposition to ensure the sustenance of democracy and good governance in Africa.
Ekweremadu spoke on Wednesday when he received, on behalf of the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, a delegation of the opposition in Parliament of Uganda, which paid a courtesy visit to the Senate after their week-long capacity building programme with the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) in Abuja.
He said, having practiced both parliamentary and presidential systems of government, Nigeria might consider adopting a hybrid of both systems to address the challenges of high cost of governance and friction between the executive and the executive.
“We have to look at the parliamentary and presidential experiences and see how we can benefit from both in the form of what they have in France in order to find something that will ensure better governance,” Ekweremadu stated.
According to the Deputy Senate President, “Every government has the tendency to act with impunity and to behave in manners inimical to democratic principles. The major drawback and check they can have is the parliament, especially the opposition in parliament.
“If we have a situation where government is entirely in the hands of one party, we will continue to have problems because the degree of impunity you find in a government is dependent on the quantum of control they have in the parliament.
“To ensure that the degree of impunity is minimized, therefore, there must be the presence of effective and efficient opposition”.
He however, advised against reckless opposition capable of slowing down the government and the delivery of democracy dividends to the people.
The senator extolled the quality of opposition provided by the opposition in the Nigerian national parliament, attributing it to the benefit of experience as a former ruling party.
