By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru
ABUJA—SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, yesterday, said the presiding officers of the National Assembly were entitled to be provided accommodation like the President, the Vice President and the Chief Justice of Nigeria. CJN.

Dogara also said it was the responsibility of the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA, to provide accommodation for the presiding officers and not the duty of the officers to know how the accommodations were provided.

The Speaker in a statement by his Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan, told the public to ignore report by an online media alleging that the National Assembly leadership collected money for the rent from FCDA without any proof.

According to the statement,“the report, which was credited to a group known as Citizen Action to Take Back Nigeria, CATBAN, deliberately set out to misrepresent and distort facts with the aim of blackmailing the persons of the presiding officers and the legislature as an institution.

“Presiding officers  of the National Assembly are entitled to official accommodation which is provided for  by the FCDA as host of the National Assembly. The same is applicable to the President, Vice President and the CJN because their offices were not covered by the monetisation policy. Consequently,  no National Assembly presiding officer receives any money from any other  source for accommodation or rent.”

“The FCDA is solely responsible for providing official accommodation for presiding officers of the National Assembly and how it  goes about it is entirely its  business and not that of any presiding officer. It’s callous, wicked and evil for any news medium to seek to perpetuate the mendacity that National Assembly presiding  officers collected money from FCDA without any form of evidence whatsoever.”