{"id":18944,"date":"2018-05-28T21:30:03","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T21:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=18944"},"modified":"2018-05-28T21:30:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T21:30:03","slug":"2019-transparency-international-questions-use-of-n241b-security-votes-by-buharis-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=18944","title":{"rendered":"2019: TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS USE OF N241B SECURITY VOTES BY BUHARI&#8217;S GOVT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Global anti-corruption group, Transparency International, said on Monday, May 28, Nigeria\u2019s government has in the run-up to elections expanded the use of opaque $670 million-a-year funds that fuel graft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">The amount when converted to naira is two hundred forty-one billion eight hundred seventy million (N241b).<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">The funds, known as\u00a0<b>\u201csecurity votes\u201d<\/b>\u00a0are mainly disbursed in hard cash and nominally released for dealing with unexpected security issues, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">According to the report, they come from both federal and state governments, although the vast majority is disbursed under the latter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Transparency International\u2019s report said the security votes, a major feature of Nigeria\u2019s dark days under military rule, have become<i>\u201csynonymous with official corruption and abuse of power.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">The watchdog\u2019s report comes as President Muhammadu Buhari is gearing up to run for a second term in February 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Efforts by Reuters to reach presidency spokespersons before the report was published was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=16285&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\"><i>\u201cThe security vote is one of the most durable forms of corruption operating in Nigeria today. Yet instead of addressing its many urgent threats, the ever-increasing use of security votes is providing corrupt officials with an easy-to-use and entirely hidden slush fund,\u201d<\/i>\u00a0Katherine Dixon, Transparency International\u2019s director for defence and security, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">The group said the spending\u00a0<i>\u201cis not subject to legislative oversight or independent audit because of its ostensibly sensitive nature,\u201d<\/i>\u00a0adding that the funds are channelled into political activities such as election campaigns or embezzled outright.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">It said federal-level total spending on items identified as security votes increased by 43 percent in 2018\u2019s budget from 2017 and included payments to a university, a museum commission and a dental technology school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Reuters checked some of the figures included in Transparency International\u2019s report against a draft version of the 2018 budget, which has not yet been signed into law, and confirmed payments to those recipients were planned and identified as security votes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Most of the estimated $670 million of security votes is disbursed by state governments, with federal spending making up only $51 million, Transparency International said. State government changes in disbursement varied, according to the report\u2019s data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">Additionally, the largest security votes each year go to security agencies, and such spending under Buhari is less than under his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, the report acknowledged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\"><i>\u201cToday, security votes are budgetary black boxes that are ripe for abuse by politicians seeking reelection or officials looking to run for political office,\u201d<\/i>\u00a0Transparency International said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">The report comes a day after a leading member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi\u00a0Frank wrote an open letter to United States of America president, Donald Trump,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.naija.ng\/1171788-apc-chieftain-writes-trump-urgent-save-nigerias-democracy.html#1171788\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0<\/a>saying there is an urgent need to save Nigeria\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">In the letter Timi Frank lamented the state of the economy, Nigeria\u2019s human rights record under the present administration, killings across the country and the plight of ordinary Nigerians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"align-left\">He said that the economy was yet to fully recover from the recession and also accused the Buhari administration of failing to obey court orders.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-18603\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"593\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff.jpg 1080w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff-300x86.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff-768x219.jpg 768w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Sheriff-1024x292.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 593px) 100vw, 593px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Global anti-corruption group, Transparency International, said on Monday, May 28, Nigeria\u2019s government has in the run-up to elections expanded the use of opaque $670 million-a-year funds that fuel graft. The amount when converted to naira is two hundred forty-one billion eight hundred seventy million (N241b). The funds, known as\u00a0\u201csecurity votes\u201d\u00a0are mainly disbursed in hard cash [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[154,4703,4704],"class_list":["post-18944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-muhammadu-buhari","tag-security-votes","tag-transparency-international"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/TRANSPARENCY.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-4Vy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18946,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18944\/revisions\/18946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}