Legislative aides to Senators, House of Reps members stage protest over non-payment of their salaries since inception of 8th senate(photos)

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 aggrived 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