Former Lagos State governor and National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on Tuesday at the annual awards of the Leadership Newspapers in Abuja called for the scrapping of the Senate to ease the process of legislation and reduce the cost of governance.

That debate about switching over to unicameral legislature instead of the bicameral parliament that we have has been on for some time, even some African countries operating a two-chamber parliament are also weighing the option.

Tinubu said the House of Representatives should stay because the basis of representation there is population while representation in the Senate is based on equality for states, whether you are small or big, you have three senators in Abuja.

While I don't want to dwell on which chamber should give way, which would be given to undue sentiments as some would argue that whereas the Senate is composed of more mature, experienced people, the House has younger, exuberant and daring Nigerians and is often unruly because it's generally unwieldy, I wholeheartedly support bringing down the cost of governance by taking another look at all money-guzzling institutions in the country.

Some would ask why look in the direction of only the Senate or the National Assembly and they would be correct. The Legislature takes only a minute fraction, roughly one-fifth, of what goes to the Executive.

The Executive is bloated with all kinds of agencies, corporations and parastatals or what have you, some of them doing exactly the same thing - the reason why the Steve Oronsaye Committee recommended outright scrapping of some and merging of others.

What should we do? The thing to do is to use the instrumentality of the ongoing constitutional amendment process to take a serious look at the cost of governance and reduce the cost drastically by letting off some bodies and reducing the weight of others.

The centre is just too big, Abuja is too bloated and should shed weight. By doing that also, it would help in making the centre less attractive maybe. By the way, and this is just an aside, it would be interesting to see how Senator Oluremi Tinubu would react to her husband - a former Senator - Asiwaju Tinubu's call for the scrapping of the Senate and sending her back to her New Era Foundation project.