Members of staff in Aso Rock Presidential Villa have been made to take an oath of secrecy, as they were issued a stern warning against divulging classified and unauthorised information.
Gatekeepers News reports that Justice Hamza Muazu of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court administered the oath of secrecy to the staff on Tuesday.
Permanent Secretary, State House, warned that the breach of classified information would attract consequences.
“I want to begin my remarks by saying that this exercise for me is the beginning of doing what is right in our respective offices,” he said.
“Breach of classified information and documents is inimical to the delivery of service. Therefore, we found it necessary to assist this segment of staff who are directly dealing with classified information.
“This is a very peculiar environment and, therefore, it is important to us to remind them about their duties, their oaths, their responsibilities in all those things they are handling and then the consequences of mishandling such kind of responsibilities.”
According to him, those who took the oath were staff of the C-in-C Secretariat; that is, Secretariat of the President; staff from the Registry of the Vice President, staff from the Registry of Chief of Staff to the President and the staff of the Registry of the Permanent Secretary.
Gatekeepers News reports that he said others were staff of the Secret Registry of the State House and the Open Registry.
“Cumulatively, these members of staff are the ones that from day to day handle some of the most sensitive information going back and forth in our offices and in our environment,” he added.
“It is very important to us to discharge our responsibility and our obligations and to let them understand that we are going to apply the rules.
“Government as an institution is held together by laws, by rules and by regulations and those laws, rules and regulations are there to be respected, to be enforced and any breach of that will always carry a consequence.
