Govs’ security votes outweigh Police, Army annual budgets – CISLAC


Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre has called for Nigeria security reforms, while lamenting that governors’ security votes, put at N208.8 billion annually, outweigh the annual budget of Police, Army, as well as Air Force and Navy combined in the last five years.
According to CISLAC, for Nigeria to end the spate of killings, banditry and insecurity across the country, it must embrace a security reform, where security votes, often unaudited, and unaccounted for, are channeled directly to funding security agencies, providing modern arms and equipment and improving their welfare, rather than being stolen by state executive. 


The Executive Director of CISLAC, Mr Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, stated this in Kaduna on Tuesday, while speaking at a workshop with the theme: ‘Criminal Justice Stakeholders Workshop on Effective Use of Complaint Channels’.
Speaking against the backdrop of insecurity ravaging parts of the country, Rafsanjani said, only adequate reform of the Police and the military can effectively address the spate of banditry ravaging Abuja-Kaduna road, Southern Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Plateau and Kogi states, which he said have become no go areas.
He described security votes as official corruption by state executives which must be stopped forthwith, and the money directed to funding security agencies. 


According to him: “We need a security reform if we must have a secured Nigeria. We need to update the training and improve welfare of our security agents, especially the Police. We need to address the poor funding, the way recruitments and promotion are happening, which is demotivating. We want security operations to be professionalised. 


“We must wake up to the reality that, we cannot have a secured country with underfunded Police. And we cannot continue with this inadequate number of Police personnel. Presently, Nigeria has just about 400,000 Police personnel, but unfortunately, almost half of number are guarding big men, some of who are not in government.
“There is also need to stop the old practice of siphoning of security votes, instead of spending such on security agencies. Security votes in the last five years have been more than the security budget for the Police and the Nigerian Army. This fund is being stolen by state executives. We cannot continue to mortgage the life and future of Nigeria for political gains. 


“Security votes are money politicians take to enrich themselves and finance their parties. It is free money, because it is not audited, not accounted for and not oversighted. So, If Nigeria desires to improve security, it must be ready to help the security agencies to achieve better result through provision of good welfare scheme, because the environment in which the Police operate presently is very poor,” he said. 


The workshop was attended by the Nigeria Police, Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Federal High Court, the media and other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

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