Nigerian Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has confirmed the sacking of 96 of his aides. His Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, made
the confirmation when he briefed National Assembly correspondents in
Abuja on Thursday.
Olaniyonu explained that the action was taken to reduce Saraki’s
aides and reposition the office toward delivering on the mandate of the
8th National Assembly.
“I am here to discuss this issue of restructuring in the office of
the Senate President. Some of our colleagues called me to clarify what
happened.“It is has been known for four months that a comprehensive staff review was going on in the office of the senate president.
“It was just concluded a few days ago and the purpose of the exercise
is to reposition the office to improve service delivery and improve on
his ability to deliver on the agenda of the 8th Senate.“We have served for two years and this is a long time enough to
determine who is good enough to continue in the last phase of the
service.“You know the Senate has just about 22 months to its expiration.
“So, it is an exercise that has now been concluded and we have
determined who is good enough to continue, who needs to give way and who
may likely come in,” he said.He added: “There are some members of staff who by their performance
in the last two years have been deemed fit to continue and those ones
are still there.“There is also a second category of people who were seconded from the
National Assembly Service Commission to the office of the Senate
president.“Some of them were told to revert to bureaucracy where they were from the beginning.
“Then, there is a third set who have been removed maybe, because they
were found not to have met expectations of the offices or who did not
help enough in the functioning of the office.“So, you see that actually, it is a positive one, not a punitive
measure. It was meant to reposition the office to ensure that the office
is more strengthened.”