Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), a legal eminence and the founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado Ekiti, proposed on Thursday that professionals should fill 40% of the seats in the National Assembly.
Having such a large number of professionals at that level of government, according to Babalola, will “stop the recycling of failed leaders or the breeding of transactional leaders.” The election of professionals will give us full and equitable representation devoid of elections of legislators who are sponsored by godfathers.”
He spoke in Ado Ekiti at the end of a four-day regional workshop organized by the Council for the Regulation of Engineers in Nigeria on the implementation of Outcome-Based Education in engineering programs at Nigerian universities.
Also Read: Buhari Begs National Assembly To Pass Anti-Loot, Whistleblower, Witness Bills
He said, “I hereby suggest that professionals representing each profession like medicine, engineering, law, accounting, banking and finance, journalism, civil society organisations etc should account for 40 per cent of the total number of legislators in the National Assembly.
“It will enable knowledgeable, selfless, patriotic and no-tribalistic Nigerians to emerge as leaders. It will obliterate the negative accolade of Nigeria running the most expensive democracy in the world.”
Babalola also advocated 20 per cent of the National Assembly seats for women “while the remaining 40 per cent will be contested generally by Nigerians.”
