The Senate President, Sen. Bukola Saraki on Thursday sacked about 96 of his personal aides. The Special Adviser to the Senate President on Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu who confirmed the development while briefing newsmen at the National Assembly on Thursday stated that the move became imperative to cut cost of governance as well as reposition the Office toward achieving the mandate of the 8th Assembly.
According to him “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"
He added that “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. 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” he said.
