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Security Votes Money, Wike State Reasons

The Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, has asked the House of Representatives to grant him the power to arbitrarily spend funds under the controversial “security vote” scheme.

Mr Wike, while appearing before the House Committee on FCT on Monday to defend the N1.1 trillion budget of his ministry, said he needs the security vote to tackle the insecurity currently ravaging the Nigerian capital.

The security vote is a controversial and corruption-ridden scheme often used by state governors to spend money arbitrarily without any form of transparency. Anti-corruption advocates have long argued that the security vote has become a conduit for siphoning funds.

“As a governor, my director of SSS can meet me and say ‘We need to carry out an operation this night’. We need N30 million to carry out that operation. I don’t need to meet the accountant, all I need to say is ‘go and take money there,” Mr Wike told the lawmakers