The Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, has directed authorities of the National Assembly Service Commission to provide details of the 3,000 members of staff on the employment of the federal parliament.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Allwell Onyesoh (PDP Rivers East) gave the marching order during an investigative session with the Chairman of the Commission, Ahmed Amshi and top management staff of the NASC.
The senators were probing the Commission’s appointments and the extent of its compliance with the Federal Character Principles.
The federal lawmakers during the engagement, maintained that recruitments by any federal agencies which is not in compliance to federal character would amount to a breach of the Constitution.
Although the NASC Chairman told the senators that the Commission had never done any recruitment since he assumed office, the breakdown of the staff records presented by the commission did not confirm his submission.
He nevertheless noted that the last time employment was done by the Commission was in 2018.
He also told the Committee that the Commission has a staff strength of 3000 with statistical distribution of the number of workers according to zones.
The Chairman of the Senate panel therefore, directed the NASC Chairman to provide the Committee with more documents.
He was told to provide details of how many workers were recruited from each state and each local government area of every zone.
Briefing journalists after the meeting, Onyesoh said: “We asked for further explanation because when you lump everything together, it doesn’t answer the question explicitly.”
He added: “For us to get to the root, we asked for further explanation, by way of more documents breaking it down to states and then to LGAs, because I have a situation where a particular region has 1024 workers in one place out of 3000.
“You will now go home with a feeling that this zone is over represented. Then you will be shocked to find out that two or three states in that zone do not have anything, and that one or two states will take everything. That was the reason we asked them to bring everything down to states.
“If you have North Central which has 1024 workers in the National Assembly, break it down to states: Kogi, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kwara, Niger.
“Let’s see how these workers were distributed among these states. Then let’s go further and look at the states because some states are over populated with workers.
“Then, when you go to a particular state, you discover that they belong to few of the local governments in the State. And that is not the spirit of the Federal Character Principle.
“The essence of the Federal Character Principle is to ensure that people get what they deserve, so that they have that sense of belonging that the country is for all of us.
“It’s for the sense of fairness to be seen.
That’s the essence of the Federal Character, and once you don’t keep to it, you defeat the whole essence and purpose of the idea behind its establishment.
“That’s why we asked for further presentation of documents up to local government levels. Bringing it down to LGA is actually going to be the basis for assessing fairness.
“Federal Character Principle is a constitutional issue. It was created to ensure that there is unity and fairness in the country, so that everybody will have a sense of belonging and you don’t feel that you are being cheated.”
