Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has confirmed the sacking of 96 of his aides.

His Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, made the confirmation when he briefed National Assembly correspondents in Abuja on Thursday.

Olaniyonu explained that the action was taken to reduce Saraki’s aides and reposition the office toward delivering on the mandate of the 8th National Assembly.

“I am here to discuss this issue of restructuring in the office of the Senate President. Some of our colleagues called me to clarify what happened.

“It is has been known for four months that a comprehensive staff review was going on in the office of the senate president.

“It was just concluded a few days ago and the purpose of the exercise is to reposition the office to improve service delivery and improve on his ability to deliver on the agenda of the 8th Senate.

“We have served for two years and this is a long time enough to determine who is good enough to continue in the last phase of the service.

“You know the Senate has just about 22 months to its expiration.

“So, it is an exercise that has now been concluded and we have determined who is good enough to continue, who needs to give way and who may likely come in,” he said.

He added: “There are some members of staff who by their performance in the last two years have been deemed fit to continue and those ones are still there.

“There is also a second category of people who were seconded from the National Assembly Service Commission to the office of the Senate president.

“Some of them were told to revert to bureaucracy where they were from the beginning.

“Then, there is a third set who have been removed maybe, because they were found not to have met expectations of the offices or who did not help enough in the functioning of the office.

“So, you see that actually, it is a positive one, not a punitive measure. It was meant to reposition the office to ensure that the office is more strengthened.”