Presidential System of Government, expensive to run in Nigeria : Babagbemi Kazeem

Within the last few days, Nigerians have been tangle with accusations and counter accusations about the cost of running a systems of government that some perceived to have been the best. Yes, we are in electioneering period, where we need to choose those who will represent our dear country for the next 4 years in different elective positions.

Party members in major political parties APC and PDP have started showing interest in the race for all elective positions at all level where we have some big and wealthy men showing interest to take shot at different seats in our political strata even the minor parties not left out in their quest to take over the mantle of leadership from the two major parties that we believed to command popularity based on their control of states in Nigeria.

What caught my attentions was recently pronouncement of both parties in their internal method of selecting a candidates to represent them in the general election with PDP first took a drastic steps to roll out the amount of their expression of interests and Nomination forms for all positions, just as APC after concluded their convention also did same, to our dismay, since government is all about service to the people, this two major parties have shown Nigerians that governance goes beyond service to the people but ability to have a well grounded financial war strengths to take shot at any positions.

The PDP pegged its own price at 40 millions naira for presidential election, Governorship 21 millions, Senate 3.5 millions, House of Rep 2.5 Mullins while ordinary House of Assembly 600 thousands, the reactions that trailed this price among Nigerians was that how will someone pay 40 millions minus the amount needed to prosecute the primary election let alone general election, what will be the ends result of spending such money and ready to sacrifice it for good governance when eventually get to power? The first assignment is to get this money back through corrupt means before even thinking of providing dividends of democracy for the people.

Alas, here come a change party, APC who rose to power with a very strong message of “Change slogan” who promised to do something different from 16 years of PDP, a government termed as government of misrule but now we ended cutting ourselves too on leg.

APC increased its own Nominations and expression of interests twice than that of PDP, they pegged their own at 100 millions for Presidential, 50 millions for Governorship, senate 20 millions, House of Representative 10 millions and ordinary House of Assembly 2.5 millions, if I may be right or correct.

Invariably, the amount of money needed to win just primary election in both parties will run to billions of naira, as told prior to 2019 that Alhaji Abubakar used more than 20 billions to prosecuted the primary supervised by Governor Wike, the same applicable in 2015 when our president won the primary, the informations was that the primary that produced Mr president was dollarised by party leaders who supported him.

Different groups, individuals have started donating money for the purchase of form especially to those nursing presidential ambition, some donated millions just for the purpose alone, in reality, they understand that they will get their money back as no money invested in Nigeria politics is waste even those who lost the primary will still have a way to get themselves to power, it’s only in Nigeria that money invested in politic is like buying palm oil, put it in ware house to the price skyrockets to double the amount used to invest on the business.

Politics apart, the question that first came to my mind is if truly political positions is all about service to people, then there must be a reason to think along with the way we run our presidential system in this part of the world. How on earth will a young man who have good intentions to provide dividends of democracy to people will have to gather 2.5 millions for just house of Assembly seat excluding the primary and main general election where vote buying characterized our system?

It is on this note that we need to speak truth to our face that the system of government we currently practiced in Nigeria is too expensive to run and will only kill us more, a country categorized as third world country who still find it difficult to meet up with basic tenets of democracy.

Its high time we either change our system of government from presidential to parliamentary system or other systems that’s less expensive, you will agree with me that the presidential system of government presently practiced has failed the nation, what we need now is to adopt the system which is less expensive,”
Government at all level needs to take “desperate measures” to tackle the challenges confronting the country.

Left to me, may be we need to reconsider going back to parliamentary system, the major difference between the two systems of government is that in a presidential system, the president is directly voted into power by the people while in a parliamentary system, the unicameral legislature holds supreme and votes a prime minister into power.

The high cost of this system among observers may be due to the fact that political appointees perceive politics as a lucrative career. It is noteworthy that less than one percent of the projected 200 million populations consume the huge sum. The effects of over-bloated political bureaucracies involving the big federal government, 36 state governments and 774 local governments are alarming.

We need to orientate and re orientate ourselves on the need to consider the masses and those who are financially handicapped but ready to take shot at government positions in order to fully participate in deepen democratic principles of our country. The tagged “Not too young to rule” or “Its youths o’clock mantra” will become unrealistic as many young Nigerians were unemployed and can’t afford to get 3 square meals a day talk less of even imaging taking a shot at the lower seat of House of Assembly pegged at 2.5 million.

There is also need to make the system we practiced less expensive and more attractive to people if truly is all about service to the people.

Lastly, can a common man in Nigeria says we are truly riding the bicycle of hope like collosal in the wilderness