THE practice of appropriating huge sums of public money under the guise of enhancing national security has come under increasing scrutiny, following the near collapse of security situation in Nigeria. CHARLES KUMOLU reports

TIME was 8 p.m. and the setting was Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory,FCT.  The forum, which was being held at Akwa Ibom State Government Lodge, was the second meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, Governors Forum.

His attendance at the meeting, perhaps, was unexpected. He walked in with the party’s Board of Trustees, BoT’, Secretary, Senator Walid Jibrin and former governor of  old Anambra State, Jim Nwobodo.

And by the time he finished admonishing the PDP governors, the party’s BoT Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih had succeeded in earning commendations across various divides for his position on judicious use of security votes by state governors. Accordingly, he said that using the fund was necessary, as the Federal Government alone could not guarantee security in the country.

“All of you are chief security officers of your states, the Federal Government alone cannot give all Nigerians security and everybody must be involved. The market women, governors, members of the National Assembly and councillors must all be involved,’’Anenih noted. Continuing he said: “Most of those who destroy houses and kill people live with us and police cannot perform miracle without information.

Performing miracles

Getting information now is very expensive, so I appeal to the governors that this is the time to use your security votes to seek information. Nobody will blame you for that.’’

Police cannot perform miracle: Aside from Anenih’s recent call, the 36 states governors had at a meeting in June last year, tabled a fresh demand for a raise in the security votes. The governors said the demand was as a result of the escalating violence by the terrorist sect, Boko Haram, which has stretched routine allocations. While it is true that the spate of violence and crime is on the rise, the question many have asked is: how well has the money been spent?

*The Nigeria Police Force Headquarters’ suicide bomb attack

VanguardFeatures,VF, can state that security votes are funds unconstitutionally appropriated by government at all levels in Nigeria for the purpose of enhancing national security.

Origin of security votes: Since the return of  democracy, billions of unaccounted funds find their way out of the treasury in the name of security vote. But many analysts have argued that the idea of security vote has always sounded antithetical to basic democratic tenets of transparency and accountability.

Hence, they questioned how a governor, in a democracy, would justify the practice of setting aside a huge sum of money, ostensibly for disbursement on security matters in a state, but for which accountability is neither demanded nor given. For this reason, many governors have turned such money into personal slush funds, used for anything but security.

Nobody  really knows how security vote got into the country’s political lexicon. Section 14(b) of the 1999 Constitution states that: “It is hereby accordingly declared that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Nowhere did the section or any other part of the statue book state that there shall be a pool of fund called “security vote.”

A 2012 report titled: “Plugging the Security Vote Leakage” observed that: ‘’Some schools of thought believe that security vote had its origin in United States of America, USA, particularly under President Richard Nixon. The report revealed further that after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald  Kennedy in 1963, “the US Congress started to include in the country’s annual appropriations, large sums of money for presidential protection (Nigeria’s example of security votes for president and governors). When Nixon became President, he converted part of the allocation to develop his country home, including the provision of an exotic, state-of-the-art swimming pool.’’

Continuing, the report said: ’’Following allegations of corruption levelled against him, Nixon argued that the President could not be said to be protected if his country home was not fortified. Sensing that Nixon had beaten them to their own game, the US Congress quickly went to work and the end result was the promulgation of the Impoundment Act of 1974, which makes it mandatory for proceeds of the crime to be impounded if found guilty. This, in America, has since ended such squander mania.’’

Checks, however, traced that the origin of the votes from the military era to the present democratic dispensation. Its popularity had expanded following the huge amounts of money reportedly appropriated .

For instance, it is estimated that on the average, a Nigerian governor gets a mini-mum of N300 million per month as security vote- a sum enough to pay the minimum wage of N18,000 of more than 16,000 Nigerians. It is also believed that some states allegedly set about N700 million as security vote per month.

Following the huge amount of money involved in security vote and the threatening degree of insecurity of lives and properties, like a recurring decimal the question pops up: What do governors and other elected officials at other levels of government do with security votes?

Verdict on security votes: The President of Campaign for Democracy, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, told VF that the present wanton waste of lives and properties across the country, is a damning verdict against the act of appropriating money to state governors for the maintenance of law and order.

National security

She regretted that the funds had not in anyway enhanced national security, adding that it had become counter-productive given the ambiguity and secrecy associated with the concept, adding that: “The Police should be better equipped instead of spending the money on security votes.’’

Votes not accounted for: But the Independent Elec

toral Commission of Nigeria, INEC, Resident Electoral Commissioner in Cross River State, Mr. Mike Igini stressed that resources are still important tool of fighting insecurity.

Hence he warned that ‘’to divert important resources away from security is suicidal for any leadership at any level because security is the principal reason people come together to form a state. I believe the key concern of Nigerians is value for money, which boils down to three Es, namely: efficiency(maximization of security benefits from inputs), effectiveness and efficacy of security decisions and resources used. We must keep the goal of security in mind, which is to be secure, all cases of insecurity do not require the same approach, hence the quality of decisions taken is key. ‘’

On the legality of the votes, Igini said: ‘’What is unconstitutional is unlawful, I do not subscribe to any form of appropriation that is not vetted, it may be done before or after it has been applied depending on its need, but it should be susceptible to scrutiny if not by a large group but by at least a specialised group; the core motivation of democratic leadership is the necessity to be accountable to electors or the representatives of electors.’’

But Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, argued that even though the governors collect security vote, they should not be blamed for the security situation in Nigeria.

Responding to a question  by this reporter during a chat with select journalists in Benin, he said issues on security votes should not be limited to governors alone.

Don’t restrict votes to governors: ‘’I don’t think it is fair for you to ask me to evaluate what other governors are doing and I don’t know why you choose to limit the matter to governors. If you look at the security votes of all the governors and that of the Federal Government, why would you limit the question to governors. I am sure that you understand that throwing money at a problem does not really mean that the problem will disappear,’’Oshiomhole argued.

Explaining further, he said: ‘’The tools or the institutions primarily responsible for security are federal institutions. The army, police, state security services and lately the civil defense corps. All these are federal agencies. The management of our borders to know the people coming in falls under federal control.

I can’t decide who lives in Edo State. It is only the Federal Government that has the monopoly of power in all of those. What a state government can do and what virtually all of us in varying degrees are doing, is to try to provide supports to these federal security agencies. But what makes a system work, is how we administer the carrot and the stick.

‘’For example, I have procured several vehicles, communication gadgets, portability to man various out of town and within town checkpoints. These things were made available to the Nigeria Police. So, even if I give all the money in the coffers of the state government and I have no control over them, what difference can it make?

Losing faith in federal police: “ When Chief Anenih said the governors should use their security votes judiciously, he should have extended it to Abuja. That is why people are calling for state police, by being in charge of our security. That is when you can hold me responsible if the security system is working or not.

Although I have my reservations about state police, but increasingly, I am losing faith that the federal police is not really meeting up with the security demands. If I am a chief security officer of my state and a deputy police commissioner, who is less than or equivalent to an Assistant Director in the state civil service, will look at me and say that he is not accountable to me, what power can I have?

If I don’t have power of discipline, recruitment, promotion, can it translate to the desired results? I only have power to give them money, can that produce results? But you must know that there are  a lot of things that many state governments have tried to do. Here in Edo the traditional rulers have had to persuade us to give them vehicles to set up vigilantes’’.

Oshiomhole’s position on the constitutional inability of the governors to control security apparatuses, was also corroborated by Igini, who regretted that elected officials at levels of governance lack the powers to control the police.

Administrative control

‘’ He has made a very important point because the ambit of control of those who implement security should be reasonably defined at the different levels of need, for, as the basic principles of administrative control suggests, regarding the span of control of someone responsible for a task, such a person must be directly responsible to a single source of control,’’ he noted.

In addition, he said: ‘’I must float a caveat: We have never heard of a local government chairperson who requires lawful use of a DPO (Divisional Police Officer), or of a state governor who requires the lawful use of a state police commissioner who did not get the required response due to his or her authority.

Moreover, the most strident opposition to the devolution of policing powers has unfortunately come from those who most need the devolution.’’  As far as the human rights activist is concerned, ‘’ the nation should devolve and de-concentrate policing powers on local issues to give elected people at lower levels sufficient leverage on security, allowing states and local government to invest appropriately in security infrastructure according to local needs, but we cannot dispense with a national police service at our current developmental stage‘’.

Relatedly, a retired Police Commissioner, Alhaji Abubakar Tamaji, told VF that even though security vote is not constitutional, the task of providing security requires huge fund. But he is angry that despite the huge amount of money spent annually by various government agencies on security, the country remained insecure.

‘’It is very unfortunate that security votes is breeding insecurity instead of providing security. And unfortunately that money is not accounted for because it is unconstitutional. It is not only the governors that collect it, other top government functionaries also collect security votes, yet there is so much insecurity in the land.

Intended purposes

The truth about security votes was made known by Kano State governor, Kwakwanso when he abolished it in his state on the grounds that he can secure the state without looting the treasury,” he noted.

Tamaji further said: ‘’Security is worth more than the money usually proposed but the big question is, will the money be used for the purpose intended? Our prime problem in Nigeria is corruption, disloyalty and dishonesty centred on lack of patriotism”. If there is less corruption in our security service coupled with proper supervision and discipline, the spate of insecurity in the nation may be tamed,’’ he noted.