Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

News

National Assembly is Broke – Senate Leader

Leader of the Senate, Ali Ndume, Tuesday said the National Assembly was broke and experiencing difficulties in meeting its financial obligations, National Mirror reports.

Reacting to newspaper reports that the legislature was facing financial challenges, Ndume said the situation was so worrisome that legislators were not receiving their allowances as and when due.

“I know that the whole country is in financial difficulty, not only the National Assembly.

“I have been in the National Assembly since 2003, but things keep getting worse. I think they paid us last month’s salary on the 16th of the following month or thereabout,’’ Ndume told newsmen in Abuja.

He, however, noted that the situation was not peculiar to the legislature, adding that other arms of government, including states, were facing similar problems.

“It is not only with the National Assembly; some states have not been able to pay salaries for six months, one year.

“Some states were even asking their workers to go and farm for two days and work for the other three days in a week.

“Even in the Presidency, they have tightened their belts on their expenditure and so, it’s a general phenomenon in the country.

“We used to receive running costs or allowances quarterly but now it is monthly and it doesn’t come as and when due,’’ he said.

On public perception of the National Assembly, the Senate leader said Nigerians had a wrong impression of the workings of the legislature.

According to him, the perception that Nigerian lawmakers were the most corrupt was untrue.

“If the National Assembly is so corrupt and you can make much money, then tell me one National Assembly member that is living in luxury after leaving office.

“Some of my colleagues who lost out in the 2015 election are struggling to pay their children’s school fees; some of them are even struggling to take care of their health.

“If the National Assembly was where you come and make a lot of money, how come one year after leaving you cannot meet your basic needs,’’ he asked rhetorically.

Ndume also lashed out at Nigerians agitating for the restructuring of the country, saying it is an unnecessary and misplaced venture.

He stated that what the country needs now is good governance and good leadership and not restructuring as being propagated by some Nigerians.

He stated that it would be wrong for a few individuals to use the media to champion their individual views in the guise of public position.

Former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Ohaneze Ndi Igbo, Afenifere, South West caucus of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, are some of the groups that have been in the vanguard for the restructuring of the country recently.

The lawmaker posited that calling for restructuring at this critical stage of our nationhood and the enormous challenges ranging from economic to security, amount to missing the point.

Said Ndume: “Whatever it is, my own position on the clamour for restructuring is that since we are in the era of democracy, the people should be allowed to decide and not individuals. Nobody should claim monopoly of interest of the people from his or her area by sitting down with few others and calling other zones, saying that Nigeria should restructure; no I don’t support that.

“I support collective decisions by Nigerians. We came together collectively, not by force, not by insult; it was by negotiation. Even our colonial masters wanted to carve out a country called Nigeria out of three basic regions – North, West and East. There were series of conferences that led to that.

“As at 1957 or 1958 when Nigeria was ready and even our colonial masters were ready to grant us our independence, the North said it was not ready, which made both the western and eastern regions that didn’t want to go their separate ways that time to wait till 1960 for independence for Nigeria as a whole and not a single region – a unity-driven collaboration that made westerners and easterners from the federation to have good presence in the northern region civil service.

“In fact, specifically, in 1979, the secretary to the state government of Borno State was a Yoruba man and the Chief Justice of Borno State was an Igbo man and they were living in harmony with people of their host communities without anybody in Borno then, calling for restructuring.

“Pointedly, I think at this critical stage of nationhood and in view of the enormous challenges confronting the nation, what is needed is good leadership at all levels which I think, we have presently at the centre for the required solutions to all the problems and not restructuring. But if the agitators still want to continue with their agitation, they should push it to the centre of national discourse where collective decision can be taken on it by all Nigerians through their representatives and not just individuals championing it”

He blamed the economic hardship being faced by Nigerians on the crash of the oil price at the international market and oil facilities vandalism by aggrieved militants in the Niger Delta.

 

__________

Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng

Copyright 2015 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

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

Advertisement

Related

News

The Senator representing Borno South Senatorial, Ali Ndume, has faulted the planned relocation of certain departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the...

News

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has announced an approaching statewide strike, and the Senate has urgently pleaded with the labor organization to reconsider its...

News

The President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu held a meeting with the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some National Assembly members on Wednesday...

News

Ahead of the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly in June, some senators-elect have begun lobbying for the presidency of the upper chamber. Aspirants...

Copyright ©