It all started with the enactment of the National Assembly Service Act of 2014 that repealed the 2004 Act reorganising the management and administrative structure of the nation’s highest lawmaking institution for the purpose of improved service delivery.
Recall the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) provides the manpower and technical support for the legislature which by the letters of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended, is an independent arm of the government vested with powers to “formulate and implement guidelines for its functions”. This is contained in section 6 (a) of the Act (2014) of the NASC and empowers it to serve as a legal institution charged with the responsibility of making appointments on promotion and transfer and confirm such appointments, dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices.
These powers are without prejudice to the mandatory requirement, that a President of Nigeria reserves the rights to appoint a chairman and members of the commission; however, these appointees shall emanate from the list submitted to Mr President by the political leadership of the National Assembly, comprising the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives upon consultations; what this does is to reemphasise the dominance independence of the legislature even in the composition of the National Assembly Service Commission which provides the building blocks for a greater service delivery of parliament.
The inauguration of the National Assembly by the clerk to the parliament who also serves as chief accounting officer and special adviser to the National Assembly and most importantly a co-signatory to all laws is one of such critical services amongst the many that makes the staff of the commission the engine room of parliament. In a lot of instances the staff work beyond civil service minimum working hours when there are issues of urgent national importance and this underscores the need for a new condition of service.
It is equally important to note that the Act establishing the National Assembly Service Commission gives it powers in sections 19 (1) thus, “subject to the provisions of this Act, the commission may make staff regulations relating generally to the conditions of service, including the power to fix salaries and allowances of the staff of National Assembly and, without prejudice to the generality of the forgoing, such regulations provide for; (b) the appointment, promotion, and disciplinary control (including dismissal) of the staff of the National Assembly”.
Suffice to say, the National Assembly Service commission, having relied heavily on the provisions of this Act in working out a new condition of service for its staff could not have engaged in any form of illegality in the first instance.
The immediate past chairman of the NASC, Dr Adamu Fika, had written the immediate past President of the Senate Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara admitting the existence of section 6 (a) of the Commission’s Act which empowers it to formulate and implement guidelines as well as sections 19 (1) that equally empowers the NASC to delve into the issues of condition of service which have made headlines in some national dailies of recent, particularly the retirement age of 65 years from the 60 years and 35 years of service from the 30 years.
Fika’s memo to the then President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives reads in parts, “the commission has reviewed all the areas of the condition of service for the National Assembly Service Commission as required. In carrying out the review, the commission considered the provisions in the conditions of service in the wider public service and the allowances that are applicable in the public sector in the federation, We have recommended the retention of the retirement age to be 35 years of service or attainment of 60 years age in view of widespread unemployment in the country”.
The operational word in Dr Fika’s memo is “Recommended”, which confirms the existence of a higher authority with the prerogative of adopting, amending or rejecting; this authority is the Senate and the House of Representatives whom the NASC Act empowers to nominate for appointment and could also fire. This authority clearly overruled the then NASC chairman by approving both the new retirement age of 65 and service years of 35 and so gazetted.
There were also schools of thought that believed that unemployment in the country should not and could not have been enough justification by the former NASC chairman to halt the activation of the condition of service clause in the NASC Act.
It is therefore not right to allude that the implementation of new condition of service by the NASC after National Assembly approval is an act of illegality.
The argument that the current Clerk of National Assembly, Alhaji Mohammed Sani-Omolori championed the activation of the new condition of service in order to perpetuate himself in office is neither here nor there, because the conditions so approved are of greater positive impact on the institution than any individual and one of such is to ensure that staff with requisite experience in parliamentary business stay much longer for the good of the institution and country.
Dr Nnaji writes from Lagos.
