Unpaid N2.5bn Debt: Legislative aides to shut down NASS

*Accuse C.N.A, Omolori

*Write Saraki, Dogara

Leadership and management of National Assembly, apart from the crisis rocking them over which party is in majority, especially in the Senate, are now neck deep in internal showdown with their  aides who have sworn to shut down the complex over unpaid allowances and entitlements due them, which run into over N2.5billion.

The National Assembly Legislative Aides Forum, NASSLAF, Nigerian Pilot Weekend learnt, has already written to the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, and speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to intimate them of their grievances

They blamed the management led by the clerk to the National Assembly, Sani Omolori, for their predicament, alleging that he deliberately refused to pay them.

In the letter, the body said they would shut down the complex over unpaid allowances and poor welfare since June 2015

The legislative aides, checks by this paper revealed, are in five categories, which include senior legislative aides, legislative assistants 1 and 2, personal assistant and secretary.

Part of their grievances is the long time agitation for training, allowances and the fear that they would be paid incomplete severance entitlements as the eighth session of the National Assembly grinds to a halt.

Each aide is entitled to N74,400 DTA allowance every three month, which is N74,400 × 9 totalling N669,600, and the severance allowance of  N34, 400 for each aide at the end of the tenure.

Every senator has at least five legislative aides and a House of Representatives member has three, with 109 senators and 360 House of Reps members, totaling 469 members of both chambers of the National Assembly.

According to insiders, the legislative aides at both chambers are worried that if their statutory Duty Tour Allowance, DTA, had been held all the while, no one knows whether a full/complete severance allowance would be paid to them after the tenure of their principals.


Further checks show that since 2015 when they were engaged, only three months allowance has been paid, raising the suspicion that the decision to withhold the balance (2015-2019) by management could be deliberate as the eighth Assembly will soon come to an end.

“If our allowances are not paid what is our hope that our severance would also be paid:  We were told by the legislative aides of the seventh Assembly that their own severance was not fully paid and we do not want to be victims, so we call on relevant authority to be aware of our plight and hardship. We will reject it if our severance entitlements are not paid in full as stipulated in the rules,” they demanded in the letter.

Meanwhile, reports indicate that some legislative aides have been bedridden without funds to seek for medical care while others have also died because of unavailability of funds for treatment.

“We lost some colleagues due to lack of money to pay medical bills while others are stranded without money to return back from their journeys;  yet we have unpaid allowances that management has deliberately refused to pay because we do not have a voice.

“We once more call on the federal government to intervene and give us our dues. We came on board on the 9th of June, 2015. A DTA is for three months; so from June 2015 to August 2018 in total is 13 DTAs and the management has only paid just four half half. Because in January 2018 we were paid N40,000 instead of N74,000; so going by our calculation we have outstanding of 10 DTA, they said.

Meanwhile, efforts to reach the director of Information, Mr Rawlings Agada, on his mobile phone for comments on the subject matter were unsuccessful.