There are indications that President Muhammadu Buhari has scrapped security vote to top federal officials.Sources in the Finance and Budget ministries also said that the order
extends to the President himself, and the Vice President.
In recent decades, security votes became popular among politicians,
military officers and public officers, especially presidents and state
governors, as a vehicle for siphoning public funds. As the nation
became more and more enmeshed in official graft, however, the practice
began to generate tremendous public criticism.
Observers say it was a relic from the long years of military rule,
but became even more prevalent as from the Second Republic, and assumed a
more dramatic and wider form in 1999. Apart from principal federal
government officials, state governors and local government chairmen
often allocate huge sums of money to their offices as ‘security’ votes,
even as the country grew increasingly insecure.
Government sources now confirm that as soon as the Buhari
administration took power last year, a clear indication was given of the
new direction when President Muhammadu Buhari asked accounting officers
in Aso Rock to keep an eye on his own expenses and that of his deputy,
noting that they both intended to run a transparent presidency, with
zero-tolerance for corruption. Subsequently, the President directed that
there would be no routine allocation of security votes to he or anyone
else as had been the practice since 1983. For state governors, security votes often run into billions of Naira
annually in many states. While the actual amount that normally goes to
the president was always sketchy, there have been clear indications that
it runs into several billions of Naira, sometimes on a monthly basis.
Budget officials say while security chiefs and top civil servants
argued for retention of security votes in order to take care of security
contingencies, the President cancelled routine vote allocations
outright, and cut security votes in the budget by 25%.This means that the National Security Adviser’s office, the
Department of State Security and the Department of Military Intelligence
have had their budgets slashed by significant sums to reflect the
president’s order to cancel routine allocation of security votes.
A source added that in a similar vein, the President and his deputy
no longer receive huge sums of money normally released by the NSA’s
office whenever they travel, as was the practice in past governments
especially the Jonathan administration. Sources revealed that in the past when the president or his deputy
traveled, not only did they receive routine estacodes, the NSA would
bring along loads of hard currency drawn from the security vote,
sometimes as much as $50,000 per trip.
On learning of the practice, President Buhari is said to have given
firm instructions to stop such practices, providing only that he and the
Vice President would only receive civil service rated estacodes and
daily travel allowance when they travel abroad, or locally. A consequence of the new standard is that prominent Nigerians who
visit Aso Rock and depart with huge bags or envelopes stacked with money
no longer receive such treatment. A source in the presidency said when
prominent Nigerians visit the president or his deputy these days, they
only get a very warm reception, tea, water, sweets and kolanut, but that
no money exchanges hands. Sources said such monies given out to
prominent visitors were normally drawn from the security vote
allocation.
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