[The Legislative Blog]: Can NASS please explain 3000 legislative aides?

Just when you’re trying to make sense of the events that happen in Nigeria’s political sphere on a daily basis, you’ll stumble on another news story that will ruin all your prior efforts. When Nigerians collectively decided to tread the path of “Change” at the 2015 elections, we’re sure a number of us looked forward to the end of irksome news stories. From the look of things now though, we’ll have to bear with this trend for a long time.

So yesterday, news reports had it that over 3000 legislative aides protested non-payment of salaries and allowances at the National Assembly in Abuja. What a multifaceted wow!

First, we need to understand why a total of 469 lawmakers from the Senate and House of Representatives need more than three thousand aides. What is the job description of legislative aides? Mostly, they provide administrative, research and communication support to legislators. The positions come in levels; there are senior legislative aides, legislative aides, personal assistant and secretary; and each lawmaker is entitled to one of each position. If this was strictly adhered to, legislative aides in both houses would amount a total 1876, or say 2000 for days when extra hands are needed.

As it is though, principal officers of the National Assembly are entitled to ridiculous numbers of aides. We hear the Senate President gets to have a total of 40 individuals tending to his legislative needs and you do not need a diviner to tell you that most of these aides end up idle and running personal business with the time they have so freely; especially considering that lawmakers hold sessions only three times a week.

You’d be wondering what their pay structure is like too. A legislative aide earns not less than N150,000 per month and salaries could go as high as N950,000 for Special Assistants and Senior Special Assistants. The question now is, “who approves these salaries?” It was made known at the protest that the salaries owned to them run into N1.5 billion, though staggering but not surprising amount since we’re dealing 3000 dispensable people here. This is a NASS that has turned deaf ears to urgent calls for a salary review for its members; where do we begin if we have to start calling on them to cut down the number of aides and their salaries…

As per usual in every government institution in Nigeria, every “oga at the top” is entitled to fixing at least three members of his family in positions. This is one of the criticisms that have been raised against the appointment of legislative aides. These guys are fixed in these useless positions because lawmakers owe them or their fathers a few favours, all at the detriment of the citizenry and treasury. Few months ago, there was a power tussle between an aide who happens to be a lawmaker’s brother and the rest of the group of aides. This confirms everything that upsets us about the NASS and its conduct re legislative aides.

The turn out of events at the National Assembly is not the first of its kind in these circumstances and it is proof that Nigeria cannot afford to keep this outrageous number of legislative assistants. The entire system needs to be checked, there’s no telling that a large percentage of these aides are unqualified for the job. The competent ones are underutilised and most likely, end up as puppets for legislators. In developed nations like the United States, legislative assistants rise up the ladder and contest for real positions in the legislature and other arms of government.

If we are aiming for sanity in the Nigerian legislature, then we should start by recruiting young, qualified individuals, who have potentials and are deserving of the role. The NASS is not family, friends and associates business. Recruit a minimal number of people who will do good jobs and we’ll rid ourselves of this constant disgrace of protesting legislative aides.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail