REVEALED! legislative aides are earning more than Senators

 The proposed National Assembly budget for the year 2017, shows that, the legislative aides would be collecting as much as N8,917,127,214 for the year under review. This amount, according to analysis, is more than double of what the honorable members of House of Representatives got for the year, even though, that of the Senators is also more than thrice less than the Reps’ allocation. In the proposed budget, the 360 honorable members of the reps would take home, a cumulative sum of N4,923,743,127 for the whole year, while the 109 Senators would take home a meagre sum of N1, 856,510,517 as salaries for the year 2017. Recent investigations show that legislative aides are getting more salaries than Senators Though the overhead cost for the legislative aides was drastically reduced to about N500m, with that of Reps members as much as N39bn and Senators N25bn; some legislative aides have argued that, it was strategically appropriated for, to continue to deny them of their allowances and other emoluments. According to Daily Post, the management of the National Assembly has not paid the Duty Tour Allowances (DTAs) and other allowances entitlements to legislative aides since year 2015. This has prompted the decision of the aides to embark on protest, to press home their demand; the decision which didn’t go down well with the management. One of the arrowheads in the proposed civil action, Mr. Olutoye Ibitoye, was reportedly arrested last week by the DSS attached to the National Assembly complex, and was later released, with a caution not to go ahead with the planned protest. Some legislative aides who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, claimed that, “with the meagre provision for overhead in the proposed budget, the management appears not ready to clear our outstanding allowances. “It also appears that, the management didn’t plan for staff trainings and other human development projects this year. ” Meanwhile, alot of aides to the lawmakers have raised serious concern over the provision of N150m for capital projects for them in the year 2017. They queried the rationale behind the said amount and wished it was added to the overhead cost, to attend to the avalanche of outstanding allowances and other claims. In a similar vein, following the nature of polity in Nigeria, some Nigerians are of the opinion that the present Senate has not delivered on behalf of the masses. There are some who hold the view that the Senate should be scrapped as to give room for fresh legislation.