Legislative aides in the National Assembly have accused President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara; and Clerk of the National Assembly, Sani Omolori, of diverting allowances of aides and slashing of their salaries.
The aggrieved legislative aides have already forwarded a petition to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the development.

This is apart from the members of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria who shut down the National Assembly last week Tuesday over failure of the National Assembly Management to pay thier salaries since 2010.
The letter to the EFCC by the legislative aides was titled: “Criminal diversion of funds of legislative aides by Clerk of National Assembly and Presiding officers of the 8th National Assembly.”

The aides in a letter written to the anti-graft agency said before the emergence of Saraki as Senate president, the monthly emolument of the aides ranged from N150,000 to N250,000, but it has been reduced to between N75,000 and N180,000 by the current leadership of the National Assembly.
The letter reads in part, “Each SLA from Level 15 to 17 is entitled to the sum of N100,000 while other category of aides receives the sum of N75,000 every quarter as DTA allowances. In essence, each aide is entitled to between N300,000 and N400,000 yearly as DTAs.
“We are also entitled to be trained four times yearly which was later compressed into twice a year. At the end of each training, each aide is entitled to a honorarium of N50,000 making a yearly total of N100,000.
“The non-payment of these accumulated legitimate entitlements has turned legislative aides into legislative slaves. We have been pauperized to the extent that we are unable to meet our financial obligations like payment of school fees, hospital bills, house rents, debt serving, putting us into several embarrassing situations.