Blood money

•It is most apt that a court judgement has described the misuse of security vote as genocide

An online observer describes security vote as “the vote used by the federal and state governments of Nigeria to siphon funds.” This seems derisive, but it is the exact manner those drawing the vote see it. Contrary to what should obtain, they have turned the security vote to a nebulous concept that may include monies spent on marabouts.

It is against this background that the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on the matter would be bad news to those entitled to the fund. But it is good news to millions of Nigerians who had been clamouring for accountability and transparency in the management of the money while the beneficiaries had been pretending that the noise was not strident enough to make them review their stance on the issue.

Indeed, the Court of Appeal not only said that failure to render account of how the fund is spent amounts to stealing; it likened the act to genocide, to really drive home the effects of not accounting for the money on the populace.

Now, how much are we looking at? Hardly can anyone say for sure what the security vote costs the taxpayer annually because it is another closely guarded secret among those spending it. We wonder why public officials here always want their access to public funds shrouded in secrecy.

Mercifully, Transparency International (TI) has given us insight into the likely amount involved. It says the president, 36 governors and the 774 local government chairmen across the country spend about $670m (N241bn) yearly which is not subject to audit or legislative oversight ostensibly on security. This is outside of the statutory provisions to the military, police and other security agencies in the country. According to the Africa Director for TI’s Defence and Security Programme, Christina Hildrew, “security votes are opaque and corruption-prone and the security funding mechanisms widely used across Nigeria’s three tiers of government; a significant percentage of the country’s overall security spending, the secretive unaccounted for add up to an estimated $670m annually”. And this is transacted mostly in cash.

This explains why the court’s judgment is a landmark. We commend the court for this progressive and sensible judgment. How can people, democratically elected people at that, regard such humongous fund as pork that they can dispense as their imperial majesties’ whim?

We also commend the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for diligently pursuing this case to this point. This is despite the vehement protests by governors that the vote should not be subject to public scrutiny because of its “delicate nature”.  As a matter of fact, the governors, under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum as recently as August, indicated that they had hired some senior lawyers to challenge EFCC’s power to probe their security votes.

Unless the Court of Appeal’s judgment is upturned, (which is most unlikely) Nigerians should now, more than ever before, insist that those collecting security votes account for them publicly. Those who insist on living in the past should know they are doing so at their own risk.