EFCC chairman reveals that governors promote insecurity so they can get bigger security votes

ECONOMIC and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) acting chairman Ibrahim Magu has accused Nigeria's governors of fuelling insecurity across the country just so they can obtain more cash in the form of higher security votes.

Under Nigeria's constitutional arrangement, governors get paid a security vote by the federal government, which they can use for emergencies. This cash, which is outside their usual budgets is not audited like normal funds and governors have the leeway to spend it as they deem fit.

Over recent years, numerous states, especially across northern Nigeria, have witnessed an upsurge in insecurity as armed gunmen have run rampage. In the Middle Belt, this has been in the form of Fulani cattle herdsmen, in Zamfara State, they have been bandits, while in Kaduna State, they have been communal.

Speaking during the induction programme organised by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum for the returning and incoming governors in Abuja yesterday, Mr Magu said that some chief executives now covertly promote insecurity as justification to inflate their security vote. Although did not go into the debate on the constitutionality of security vote, he warned the governors on the need to be transparent in the expenditure of public funds.

Mr Magu said: “We have seen evidence of the theft of public resources by some state governors, cashing on the insecurity in their states. Insecurity has also offered the required oxygen for corruption to thrive as evident in the $2.1bn arms procurement scandal involving top military commanders both serving and retired.”

He further stressed that corruption can also not be divorced from the festering insurgency in the northeast, explaining that the nexus between corruption and terrorism is that corruption promotes insecurity. In addition, Mr Magu also pointed out that the militancy in the Niger Delta and insurgency in the northeast are by-products of corruption.

“Mass poverty in the northeast region due in part to corruption by the ruling elite, is largely to blame for the ease with which the Islamists are able to recruit fighters to sustain their aggression against the Nigerian state. Also, as an investigator, I am shocked by the quantum of resources stolen from the Niger Delta Development Commission by those who run the intervention agency.

"It is so bad that even a mere personal assistant to a former managing director was charged for stealing over N3bn. Whether we like it or not, corruption and terrorism have become the twin evils, undermining our collective efforts to make Nigeria a truly great country,” Mr Magu added.

He, tasked the incoming and returning governors on the need to shun corruption. Mr Magu further stated that Nigeria’s failure to take full advantage of its natural resources could also be attributed to corruption as public office holders are in the habit of constantly pillaging public resources.

Mr Magu observed that Nigeria's loss to corruption over the last decade runs into trillions of naira, noting that a review of the recoveries shows that in 2017, the EFCC recovered N473.065bn, $98m, €7m and £294,000, while N236.16bn was recovered in 2018. He added that this offered just an insight into what had been stolen so far.