•It should be reformed – Markafi
From Magnus Eze, Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called for the cancellation of security votes for the president and governors, saying that it had become an avenue for siphoning public funds.
NLC President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, who described security vote as another form of corruption also called for the removal of immunity clause in the Constitution.
“The issue of security votes is another form of corruption. In fact, there was a particular state where N1 billion was removed as security vote in one month. It is an avenue for corruption. In good governance, all monies spent by government are budgeted and transparently applied.
“So, our position is that the issue of security vote should be done away with.
All monies to be spent should be transparently budgeted for, including the so-called security votes so that it can be tracked to prevent corruption,” he said.
He added: “All over the world, you find that no public officer or government official, either president or governor, is given immunity from criminal prosecution. That’s one issue that I think is affecting the fight against corruption. Where people cannot be prosecuted while in office, after they leave office, they would use their influence and resources they have accumulated to frustrate prosecution.”
Aware that people take advantage of the loopholes in the laws to circumvent conviction, Wabba noted that prosecution of some of the corruption cases linger for as long as 14 years.
“Some of these cases outlive the life of the administration that started the probe due to this particular challenge. There are some cases that started before the administration of former President Olusegun Obansajo till now they are still on-going”, he stated.
The NLC President urged the Prof. Itse Sagay-led Presidential Committee on Anti-Corruption to pursue some legal reforms including creating special courts for corruption cases with time limits.
Meanwhile, the chairman, National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ahmed Makarfi, advocated for institutional reforms to shield security votes from abuse.
The former governor of Kaduna State said it was important to set up a machinery for an institutional reform on how security votes are managed.
“This affects not only the Federal Government, because if you come down to the states, you are going to find similar happenings. Even local government chairmen have security votes and you are going to find that their expenditure follows similar pattern.”
The factional national chairman also spoke on the corruption war embarked by the Federal Government, saying that it was not politically motivated.
According to him, the government and security agencies have the right to invite people to explain issues that might arise in the course of investigation “whether you are in PDP or not, whether you are a politician or not. If I am to be fair, I will not say it is politics.
“If you are invited purely on the issue of campaign funds, anybody can be invited to explain, it depends on the essence of the report.’’
Makarfi said in doing so, the government should avoid targeting “middlemen’’ and concentrate on “those who know the source of the money’’ being investigated.
The former governor stressed that the government should investigate and prosecute those who approved and released public funds illegally.
“You should be right to do so provided you know that the funds are from illegitimate source.’’
The PDP national chairman also warned against investigating funds donated to political parties for campaigns, insisting that if the government wanted to do so, it must investigate all donations.
“In all these issues, you have to be careful to be able to find out for what purpose the funds were meant for, because sometimes. they may not be purely for political reasons.
“You have to get the facts right, because under Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) for instance, we had contracts and money for politics.
“If you are going to look deeply, definitely religious leaders, traditional rulers and other national figures must have got some share too,” he said.
