Aides to members of the Nigerian senate and House of
Representatives, today, stormed the National Assembly premises to protest the
non-payment of their allowances and salaries accumulated since the inception of
the 8th assembly.
The aggrieved aides were seen chanting songs and holding
placards with inscriptions, “we are aides, not slaves.”
In an interview with newsmen, the leader of the protest,
Nyakari-Abasi Etuk, said they have not
been paid Duty Tour Allowances (DTA) among others, since the inception of the
8th assembly.
''Some of us, they are owing us up to one point something
million and these are funds we use to go on errands and other miscellaneous
things. The last leadership of the
national assembly paid us up to date. We are not talking about training, the
issue of training is also there, we are supposed to have four trainings in a
year. Ever since we started we have not had training. The training that we had
was sponsored by the National Assembly Service Commission. All we are asking
for is our entitlements. This is our plight, this is our concern. We are
telling everybody, today is the resumption date and most of the aides, some
have died, some don’t have money to send their children to school. We are
calling on the leadership to ensure that our allowances are paid, to ensure we
collect our duty tour allowances. Every year, allocations and budget are given
to the national assembly which captures the legislative aides. So all we are
saying, all we are asking for is for them to pay us. We are over 3,000
legislative aides.” he said
