Bankole’s father advises Buhari on best legacy to leave

” The best legacy President Muhammadu Buhari must leave for Nigerians, for them to remember him forever, is to ensure that the country reverses to parliamentary system of government.”

Chief Alani Bankole, father to former House of Representatives speaker, Dimeji Bankole, said this in Abeokuta yesterday while commending Buhari for recognising June 12 as Democracy Day.

In a chat with newsmen, the former national chairman of National Party Nigeria (NPN) added: “But the day would mean nothing to the people if they are still suffering, because the presidential system has proved not to be in the best interest of the people.”

To him, the country’s democratic system is wobbly “because there have been so many mistakes, as if we were in the 1960s.”

He argued that the “expensive” presidential system, aside not being in the interest of the people, “is not working”.

Other reasons he adduced include that in the presidential system, the president wields so much and that Nigeria is “not matured” enough to practise such expensive system.

His words: “A system that spends so much on current expenditure instead of capital projects is surely not the best for a developing country like ours.”

Describing former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s allegation that the Federal Government was plotting to ‘Fulanise’ the country as baseless and unfair, the Egba chief said: “It is good to criticise if need be; but when one criticises, he must suggest solution,” that is what the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo did.”

While supporting local government autonomy, he described the present situation where too much power is concentrated in the hands of the governors, to the extent that they don’t allow the councils to function, as unacceptable.

Chief Bankole praised the federal government’s anti-graft war, but said that more needed to be done.

“So far so good, but it must be given more bite,” he added.