By Ben Agande
Scores of aides and personal staff of outgoing members of the National Assembly are facing an uncertain future after their principals lost in the bids for re-election and are preparing to depart the Senate or the House of Representatives.

In the last few days, the affected Senators and Representatives have been moving personal effects from their offices and rented accommodation to start a new life.

An aide to one of the senators who lost his election said: “As soon as we lost, Oga told us that we should move his personal effects from the office and ensure that all official property in our possessions are returned to the National Assembly as soon as possible.

“What we have in our possession now are a few personal effects that we would use in the course of our duties in the remaining few days. As the final day draws nearer the reality is that our stay in the National Assembly in the last eight months has finally come. We don’t have a choice but to move out.”

The experience of the last 12 years has helped in preparing the management of the National Assembly and members of the security agencies attached to NASS for the present task of securing public property from being pilfered by some aides of the legislators.

Bob Effiong and Patrick Osakwe

There were instances where by legislative aides were caught attempting to steal National Assembly property. Saturday Vanguard gathered that security agencies have been placed on the alert to check pilfering in the final days of the present session of the NASS.

Although most of the property in the offices of the Senators are provided by the National Assembly management, some senators brought in the personal gadgets to ensure better performance of their legislative duties.

For instance, basic office equipment like computers, refrigerators and air conditioners are provided, senators sometimes bring in higher capacity facilities like personal laptops and bigger screen television sets. Such property are expected to be registered with the security at the point of being brought.

Besides the removal of personal effects, legislators who failed in their re election bids are making efforts to reconcile their accounts with the finance department of the National Assembly before they depart.

When NASS members is to undertake an official tour he is expected to give an account on how much
is to be spent. In some cases, such account reconciliation accumulates over the years. And since payment of severance allowances is based on the reconciliation of their accounts, last minute attempts at clearing he backlog of such reconciliations are always at a frenzy.

Prior to the sale of the legislative quarters in Apo during the Obasanjo administration, times like this usually witnessed a lot of movements out of the Legislative quarters to give room for renovation of the official quarters for the in coming legislators. But with the sale of the legislative quarters, there is no such activity at the former Apo legislative quarters because most of the NASS members are owners of the houses they occupy.

For some of the legislators, the end of their legislative career opens another chapter for a life outside NASS. Senator Bob Effiong who lost in the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party says the end of his legislative career after eight years in the senate has paved the way for a return to his legal career which was put in abeyance while the legislative phase of his life lasted

. “By the end of this sixth senate, I will go back to my legal practice and I want to formally inform you that I am ready to take any brief, including from those who lost their elections” he told some journalists in his office during the week.

While other senators have their professions to fall back on, some have engaged in serious lobbying to be made ministers or given other appointments in the next dispensation. Saturday Vanguard gathered that some senators who lost in the elections have been mounting pressure on the President of the Senate to ensure their accommodation by government as it forms a new cabinet.

The words of Senator Patrick Osakwe who voluntarily stepped down after spending twelve years in the Senate capture the mindset of some senators who did not win re election. Hear him: ‘If in a community of more than half a million people one is elected to the senate for even one term, it is a rare honour that should be cherished.

For me, the last twelve years have been some of the most remarkable and as I take a bow, it is the close of a wonderful chapter in my life and the beginning of another one. It is not a time of mourning but a celebration of a period of service well delivered’, he said.