TheCable

Bala Na’Allah, deputy leader of the senate, says those who want upper legislative chamber to be scrapped are “just expressing their ignorance”.

Speaking in an interview, Na’Allah said a bi-cameral legislature was needed to prevent one ethnic group from dominating the others.

He said if the country had only the house of representatives, 67 percent of the lawmakers would be from the north and they would be able to influence major decisions – a situation “framers” of the constitution were avoiding.

“People who have no idea of how we came about and what the constitution says are just exposing their ignorance by calling for the senate to be scrapped,” he said.

“The reason for this is because of our multicultural, multilingual, multi-ethnic society where ever the past has expressed fear of domination.

“Let us assume that we can have the house of representatives and avoid the senate, technically more than 67 percent of the national assembly will be from the northern part of Nigeria.

“Democratically if everything is going to be put to vote, it means the north will always have a share in whatever is wanted in this country.This is not the intention of the framers of our constitution.”

Na’Allah said the senate would continue to do its job, and summon anyone who is under its oversight supervision.

He said it was only through strict oversight that the senate could promote good governance and ensure that abuse and misuse of power are curtailed.

“People do not understand the wisdom of the framers of our constitution when they decided to domicile the issue of budgeting in the national assembly,” he said.

“Most participants in the governance of this country, either they do not understand the constitution or they do not understand the reasons for inserting certain provisions in the constitution.”