By Deshi Munkuwe
A renown Abuja based anti-corruption NGO; Almushahid Initiative for Transparency and Accountability (AITA) has described the ‘enjoyment’ or ‘vacation’ allowances for senators and house of representative members as act of mismanagement and misappropriation of public funds at the detriment and plight of the poor masses of Nigeria that is condemnable and unacceptable.
In a press release made available to newsmen on Thursday and signed by its National President; Amb. Aminu A. Majidadi, AITA vehemently reacted to the announcement by the Senate President, Senator God’swill Akpabio prior to the Senators’ annual vacation that the clerk of the house will send to the senators bank accounts ‘enjoyment allowance’ for their vacation.
“AITA condemn in its totality, the so called enjoyment allowances to National Assembly members as announced by the Senate President which is unacceptable by Nigerians who are currently facing intense hardship caused by the subsidy removal.” It stated.
“According to our reliable source, the allowances as announced by the Senate President are mind blowing sums of money sent to each senator and reps member. We uncover that each Senator got N35 million, Principal Officers N50 million, Reps member N30 million, Principal Officers 45 million. This is unacceptable.
AITA further said the unexpected announcement by the Senate President before he withdrew when the statement has already been captured by cameras and journalists covering proceedings of the Senate was an act of God in answering the prayers of Nigerians by exposing those who secretly shares what is meant for the masses.
The antigraft NGO called on Nigerians to continue to pray to God to expose all those eating big to their plights and to pray for confusion at the camps of the enemies of Nigeria anywhere they are and how big they might be.
AITA also called on the leadership of the Senate and house of representatives to apologize to Nigerians and to refund every missappropriated allocations back to the nation’s treasury and to ensure that is used to salvage the current sufferings of Nigerians.
Also, AITA called on President Tinubu for thorough investigation of this scandal and urged the president to act fast in implementing interventions plans and programmes as Nigerians sufferings gets increasing on a daily basis.
