Rumble in Aso Villa

• Over 10 months unpaid allowances
• President Buhari’s security may be compromised
• Villa CSO raise terror alert; ban tinted cars   

Security operatives attached to the presidential villa in Abuja are discontent and upset over their unpaid allowances.

The situation if not addressed promptly may degenerate into a security breach.

Aso Villa source who pleaded for anonymity noted that “moral of the security operatives had dropped drastically” over the non-payment of the allowance.

The immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan consistently settle all security agents attached to Aso Rock under an administrative cost module called Risk Cautious Allowance (RCA).

The security officers include those of the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police, Department of State Services, Nigerian Intelligence Agency, Federal Road Safety Commission and Fire service.

However, the Jonathan administration paid the allowance up until March 2015 and left those of April and May unpaid.

Discontent operatives noted that since the inception of the present administration nothing has changed and they still have not been paid.

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In September 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari directed that special payments made to security guards at Aso Rock be stopped.

In response to President Buhari’s directive, this medium learnt that the security operatives were told by their immediate bosses that the RCA had not been stopped and even promised that the rate would be reviewed upward.

The operatives were asked to open bank accounts with Zenith Bank Plc where their RCA will subsequently be paid.

One of the operatives said that since last year they complied and opened the bank accounts but the government had not fulfilled its promise.

However; a top presidency official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the security operatives’ allowances had been approved in January. He expressed hope that payments would soon be made to those concerned; once the cash backing for the Villa’s 2016 budget scale through.

Meanwhile, the presidency has recently moved against terror attack in Aso Rock presidential villa in Abuja.

Buhari’s chief security officer, Bashir Abubakar, issued a circular titled ‘Use of tinted cars around the Presidential Villa, Abuja’. According to the directive, all tinted cars and other vehicles should be systematically searched.