Northern Elders seek interrogation of Nigeria’s presidential system of governance, say ‘It is not working’

Hakim Baba-Ahmed, spokesman for Northern Elders Forum (NEF), has argued that the current presidential system practiced in Nigeria needs to be interrogated, as according to him, it’s not working.

Baba-Ahmed revealed this on Sunday during a monitored Channels Television programme. According to him, Nigeria is one of the few federations in the world that has single police force, arguing that the presidential system creates only few powerful individuals such as the president and governors.

“We need to put the presidential system on the table and debate its workability. Whether parliamentary or presidential Nigeria is the very few federal system that has a single police, it is not workable,” he said. “Why don’t we sit down and interrogate both systems.”

Baba-Ahmed said the country did not practice parliamentary system long enough, insisting that the Nigerian nation cannot be built on the basis of strong individuals.

“My position is that we did not practice the parliamentary system long enough to know whether it is good enough. The presidential system creates very powerful individuals, such as the president and governors that everything about governance revolves around them,” he said.

“We can’t build a great nation on the basis of strong individuals. There is a failure of policing in Nigeria; this has led to states creating security outfits, which is illegal by law, and the federal government should have challenged it. What they should do is compel their law makers to change the constitution and put under a national legal framework.

“There should be a wholistic legal review to achieve state police to ensure standard and streamline with the central police. My position for the new president are economy, insecurity, education – he must have mental and physical strength to support any candidate without recourse to narrow primordial considerations. These issues are central to us.”