Reps lobby for office spaces

Members of the House of Representatives have begun lobbying for choice   office spaces just three days after Speaker Yakubu Dogara inaugurated an Ad Hoc Committee on Welfare to facilitate the settling down of the 360 lawmakers for their legislative duties in Abuja.

The committee was inaugurated on Tuesday on his behalf by the Deputy Speaker,   Yusuf Lasun.

The committee, which is chaired by   Bashir Baballe –Illa is charged with the responsibility of allocating offices and   and equipping the lawmakers’ offices   as well as processing the payment of their allowances.

However, our source learnt on Thursday that soon after the committee took off, disagreements ensued among the lawmakers over choice of offices.

Findings on Thursday showed that many members had already written to the Sergeant-at-Arms to the National Assembly demanding that certain offices be retained for them.

It was gathered that such letters came   mainly from the returning members of the House.

A National Assembly official source who confided in our correspondent said, “On the take-off of the committee, some of the letters were referred to the committee, conveying the demands of the members.

“I think the problem is that there are persons who have some sort of attachment to particular office spaces and they have asked that they(offices) should not be re-allocated.

“There are members who are equally not comfortable with this idea and they have complained.”

It was gathered that the most sought after offices were those located on the third and the fourth floors of the House of Representatives New Building.

Offices on the fourth floor are the most sought after because of their proximity to the offices of the speaker and   other principal officers.

By tradition, the speaker, the deputy speaker, the House leader, the Chief Whip, the deputy leader, the Minority leader and other principal officers occupy offices on the fourth floor.

Other offices on the same floor and the third floor are shared in order of ranking or the influence of the occupants.

Findings indicated that a member from one of the South-South states, said to have been in the House since 1999, pasted a bold notice on the office he occupied in the 7th Assembly, saying that he would want to retain the same office.

The message read , I am a returning member and I will like to retain my present office.”

Several returning members pasted similar notices on the third floor.

Out of the 360 members of the House, only 127 are returning from the 7th Assembly set. The majority of 233 lawmakers are new comers.

One senior member told our correspondent that the squabble over offices was “unnecessary “ because the tradition was that offices were allocated according to seniority or “ranking.”

“If you go to the chamber, it is the same ranking that decides how seats are allocated. Front rows are for principal officers and the most senior members in that order,” the member added.

Our correspondent made unsuccessful efforts on Thursday to get Baballe-Illa a to comment on how his committee was handling the issue.

However, a member of the committee,   Abdulrazak Namdas, said they were ready to address any issues raised by members.

He disclosed that one step taken so far was to allow any member who wished to keep their offices to do so.

“Yes. We have made it a policy such that if you are a returning officer and you want to retain it (office), we allow you to retain it,” Namdas stated.