90% of delegates have no electoral value – Akume

The Senate Minority Leader, Senator George Akume, has said 90 per cent of delegates at ongoing National Conference have no electoral value, even as he lambasted the delegates for proposing a part-time legislature for Nigeria.
Delegates at the National Conference had on Wednesday approved the recommendation of the committee on Public Service for a part-time legislative system in the country at both the state and federal levels as a way of reducing cost of governance in terms of jumbo salaries and other mouth watering emoluments elected legislators across the country are getting under the present arrangement.
But Akume, in his reaction to the conference position, said part-time legislature is not and can never be the answer to executive impunity and corruption in the country, which are largely responsible for high cost of governance in Nigeria over the years.
He said that he was not surprised that such a proposal was coming from people that were not elected but handpicked by an individual for national assignment.
He said they in fact have no electoral value in the first place to stand for and win any election, let alone understand and appreciate what constituted elected offices, especially the legislature, in a democratic template.
His words: “I do not believe as wrongly proposed by the unelected delegates at the National Confab that Part-Time Legislature would help in appreciable terms in the reduction of cost of governance in Nigeria since it cannot serve in anyway as antidote to executive impunity and corruption that had over the years been the cause of high cost of governance in the land.
“I am not and I believe other lawmakers are not surprised that such a proposal came from the National Confab peopled by handpicked delegates who are by their actions proving to have been put together for rubbishing and embarrassing the National Assembly peopled by elected representatives of Nigerians.”