Away with security votes!

The allocation of monthly security votes to state governors in the country has continued to evoke negative emotions and outrage. Although Nigerians are kept in the dark regarding the exact amount involved, those privy to the workings in government circles say the monthly donation is humongous – in the neighbourhood of N500 million to N700 million every month.

The immorality of the vote is that it is not only unappropriated and unaudited, it is also unaccounted for.

In a country where millions of the population are living below poverty line; where security wholly resides with the Federal Government to the extent that governors have no powers to deploy the police when the need arises unless instruction comes from the Inspector General of Police, it becomes questionable, therefore, the rationale behind the monthly bazaar.   

To start with, the constitution does not provide that security money be given to presidents and governors. The whole idea emanated from military rulers who wanted to enjoy themselves under the guise that they needed money to take care of state security. Over the years, civilian presidents and governors have increased the amount to what we have today.

In the last seven years, insecurity has been one of Nigeria’s greatest challenges. Within this period, the country has lost hundreds of citizens to the dastardly activities of insurgents and other categories of criminals. This is in spite of the huge sums allocated as security votes.

Without mincing words, we must say that whether in the military regime or civilian era, such allocations are wasteful and encourage corruption. This is why politicians in the country are fighting and killing one another to be governor or president.

For the first time since the return of the country to civil rule, the Federal Government had to release a bailout package of N804.7 billion to states to offset months of unpaid salaries. Meanwhile, governors of these states received huge security votes in the months they owed workers’ salaries.

We daresay that it is immoral and amounts to insensitivity on the part of governors to keep asking workers to take pay cut or denying them of their due wages, while at the same time living large on undue privileges, such as security votes, at the people’s expense. It is also lamentable that apart from the security votes, many state governors are known to also line their pockets with a sizeable portion of the monthly federal allocations to their states and the internally generated revenue (IGR).

Balarabe Musa, a former governor of the old Kaduna State, recently explained that before the military came to power in 1966, the amount of security fund, though not made public, was voted and that the only difference between then and now is that the money was accounted for.

“Since the military took over power, the money is no longer accounted for. It is now treated as ‘pocket money’ to the chief executives, either at the federal or state levels. When I was governor of the old Kaduna State, security vote was just N100, 000 annually and I did not see the need for it to be more than that because all security issues were attended to by the Federal Government. Even now, the FG is responsible for virtually all security issues and state governors, therefore, do not need N500 million as security votes,” Musa said.

“N500 million that is without being accounted for and proper documentation is simply brazen corruption. One begins to wonder what our anti-corruption agencies are doing when they cannot expose this kind of thing. President Buhari cannot tell Nigerians that he is sincere in the fight against corruption if the nation’s resources continue to be plundered in the name of security votes under him,” he added.

We note with regret that, apart from state governors, local government chairmen and some chief executives of government agencies and parastatals have also since been enjoying security votes. It is high time we put a stop to this madness.

If the fight against corruption by the current administration is to be seen to be a genuine one, President Muhammadu Buhari must urgently take a drastic measure to stop this impunity by doing away with such a drainpipe in line with his determination to reduce cost of governance.