Former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, has joined the call for financial autonomy for the judiciary, saying it will entrench good governance in the country.
Speaking at the ongoing Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) yesterday in Abuja, Akpabio, who is now the Senator representing Akwa Ibom North West, said the legislature was working hard to ensure that the judiciary gets its funding on first line charge “so that they don’t go cap-in-hand begging from the executive”.
He also called for recruitment of the right people as judges to instil public confidence in the system, explaining that a country is not ruled by men but by laws.
The Senate minority leader also called for synergy between the NBA and legislature to reduce the cost of governance and make more funds available for capital projects.
“For Nigeria to make progress we must unbundle the federal government. A situation where you have 60 honourable ministers and 486 directors’ general, who are almost on the same status as ministers, is cumbersome; it is too weighty for the federal government. The result is that we have a recurrent expenditure of over 75 per cent and what is left for development is less than 20 per cent, you can’t make progress as a nation; you can’t have railways, power and industrialization with that”, he said.
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