The National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) has been directed by the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, to present details of the 3,000 employees of the federal parliament.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Allwell Onyesoh (PDP Rivers East), gave the directive during an investigative session with the Chairman of the Commission, Ahmed Amshi, and top management staff of the NASC.
The senators were investigating the Commission’s appointments and assessing its adherence to the Federal Character Principles.
During the engagement, the federal lawmakers maintained that recruitments by any federal agencies not observing federal character principles would be a breach of the Constitution.
While the NASC Chairman informed the senators that no recruitment had taken place under his leadership, the staff records breakdown presented by the commission did not align with his statement; however, he acknowledged that the last recruitment conducted by the Commission was in 2018.
According to Amshi, the Commission has a staff strength of 3,000, with the North Central boasting the largest number at 1,024, followed by the South-south with 631, the South East with 592, the North West with 564, the North East with 474, and the South West with 436.
Consequently, the Chairman of the Senate panel instructed the NASC Chairman to provide the Committee with more documents, particularly requesting details on the recruitment of workers from each state and local government area within 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.
“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 Chairman of the Senate panel emphasized the importance of the Federal Character Principle in ensuring fairness and unity, stating that adherence to this principle is crucial for promoting a sense of belonging and preventing feelings of injustice.
He underscored that the principle aims to ensure equitable distribution of opportunities across all regions and emphasized the need to assess compliance with this principle down to the local government level to uphold fairness and unity in the country.
“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,” he added.
