Members of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) on Tuesday stormed the National Assembly Complex in Abuja to demand full implementation of financial autonomy for the state legislature.
The group expressed dismay at the action of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) aimed at frustrating the implementation of financial autonomy.
The workers alleged that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) is impeding every effort to also implement President Muhammadu Buhari’s Executive Order 10 which was signed last year, to grant autonomy for the judiciary and also improve their welfare.
The workers during the protest threatened that if their demands are not met, they will continue the protest and occupy all State Assemblies across the Federation.
The protesters blocked the second gate preventing human and vehicular movement in and out of the building.
President of the Parliamentary Workers Association of Nigeria, Mohammed Usman, who spoke on behalf of the workers, said the Federal lawmakers should take the necessary steps to implement financial autonomy for the judiciary as the welfare of their members is tied under the autonomy.
“Enough is enough, when there is no legislation, there is no country. They want to deny the independence of the legislature, we will not allow that. If they continue to deny us financial autonomy, we will use everything in our arsenal to fight them.
“We are after the governors, we are after the implementation committee that the needful must be done.
“In the next six days, if the implementation is not done, we will shut down the whole 36 states assemblies including the National Assembly,” Usman told journalists during the protest.
Also,Adu-Peters Olusegun, the Zonal Vice President, South-West, while commenting on the development, said the protesters were at the National Assembly to seek the audience with the leadership on the need to speed up the implementation of the law.
“We are talking of order 10 passed and signed by the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria wherein among other things, the independence of the legislative in terms of financial autonomy where the houses of Assembly will not go cap in hands to the governors to seek for financial favour or curry favour for that matter.
The fulcrum of democracy is legislative and for it to stand, we must be able to defend it,”
