By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Benin City, Nigeria – As the war against corruption in Nigeria rages on, frontline anti-graft, human and environmental rights crusader, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), has tasked all state governors in the country to open their books for public scrutiny.
ANEEJ made the demand in Benin during the week while commending the “bold and uncommon step” taken by the Governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, to disclose his monthly salary as governor and details of the expenditure of his monthly security vote.
El-Rufai’s disclosure came on the heels of a challenge thrown at him by the leadership of the House of Representatives after the Kaduna state governor accused the lawmakers of scuttling the anti-corruption effort of the Federal government.
Not spared in this demand is the nation’s National Assembly, which the organization said, must open its books for rigorous scrutiny, especially given the fact that the legislature threw the challenge at the governor.
“Over the years, there have been many calls on the National Assembly to open its books for public debate, especially after Nigeria entered a recession,” Ugolor recalled.
Recently, he said, the Senate has refused to confirm Ibrahim Magu as substantive EFCC Chairman apparently because of the perception of corruption prevalent in the National Assembly and the full-scale investigation which could occur in the event of the confirmation of the anti-corruption czar.
The security vote is a humongous sum of money allocated annually to state governors and the executive arms of government for the maintenance of law and order.
Because of the sensitive nature of data and intelligence gathering, it is deemed inappropriate to account for how such monies are expended, and this has led to fraudulent practices, abuse and corruption.
ANEEJ Executive Director, Rev. David Ugolor noted that Nigerians have complained as well that even though the governors receive these sums monthly, there has been a high incidence of insecurity across board nationwide.
“We believe that this action on the part of the Kaduna state governor is an example to all state governors. We urge them to emulate him and publish a monthly expenditure of how they have spent their security votes over the past year,” Ugolor said.
At the inception of the Buhari administration, investigations revealed that $2.5billion which was supposed to have been used to buy arms to fight terrorists was mismanaged, stolen and has not been accounted for.
Since that investigation at the Federal level, a parallel investigation involving the expenditure of the security vote at the state level has not taken place.
