By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja
On a lighter note!!!
For those who do not know, the word “Bicameral” means
“Having, consisting of, or based on two legislative chambers…
a bicameral legislature comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate”.
In a previous article, I had written that one of the common phenomenon in Nigeria is that, what obtains in actual practice or reality is often 100% different from what the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 or any other law prescribes.
Chapter 1, Section 4 of the Nigerian Constitution states that the Nigerian National Assembly is a Bicameral legislature while the legislatures of the State Houses of Assembly of the 36 States of Nigeria are unicameral (only chamber).
However, in actual practice, we now have at least two States of Nigeria (Lagos State and Rivers State) wherein they are operating Bicameral legislature with two Houses of Assembly led by different persons laying claim to the position of Speaker of each of the said Houses of Assembly.
In the case of Rivers State, the two Houses of Assembly have been in existence since December 2024. While in the case of Lagos State, since 13th January 2025, two speakers have emerged.
Interestingly, Nigeria’s Presidential system of government is modelled after the United States of America (USA) model wherein the legislatures of the 50 States are bi-cameral as is the national/federal legislature (the US Congress).
So what is there to stop States in Nigeria that can afford it from running bi-cameral legislatures, if they can afford it?
Ironically, Lagos State and Rivers State are in the league of the States with highest internally generated revenue (IGR) or income, therefore, it is logical that they can afford to sustain the expenses associated with bi-cameral legislatures.
Rivers State is already bearing the costs of concurrently running the expenses of the two legislatures since December 2024.
All that needs to be done now is to make it official: by naming one of the legislatures as “Senate” while the other be named “House of Representatives”.
In the case of Lagos State, naturally, the Obasa faction would be named as the “Senate of Lagos State of Nigeria” because Obasa has pedigree of being a Speaker since the year 2015!!!
As for Rivers State, since the Supreme Court of Nigeria has already assumed jurisdiction over the matter, we shall allow them to do the naming!!!
Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director,
Nigerian Law Society (NLS).
