Enthroning the Tenets of Accountability and Transparency in Defense Spending: The Security Votes Brouhala and the Recklessness of State Governors in Nigeria

Abstract

The idea that, it is the sole responsibility of any government whether in the developed or underdeveloped nations to protect the lives of its citizens remains indubitable and accepted line of thinking.  This ethical reasoning resonates the cardinal function of the defence and security apparatus of any state.  The protection of lives and property of citizens of any state guarantees the level of investment, industrialization and development in such state.  However the irony remains, that despite the huge amount of monies voted for security votes in Nigeria, the problem of insecurity in respective states seems insurmountable.   Cases of kidnapping, arm robbery, rape, cult-related killings, etc. still loom high in different states in Nigeria.  The problem become worrisome as there is high secrecy, non-auditing and poor scrutiny by both national and state assembly in probing those Federal bodies authorized to spend security money and states governors who operate with impunity as regard the use of security votes.  The level of the state governors been prone to account for their use of such monies that runs in millions (between 300-500 million) would have curtail their excesses.  But the reverse is the case, as they continue to recklessly misappropriate such money.  It is on this note the tenets of accountability and transparency comes to play.  This work utilizes the content analysis methodology as data was gotten solely through secondary sources – textbooks, journal publication, newspapers, internets documents, etc. the study adopt good governance theory to buttress the work.  The study found out that, there is a lacuna arising from the level of impurity on the pair of the state governors in misappropriating the security votes, without any means to check mate and make them accountable.  The study therefore recommends among other things; the enthronement of accountability and transparency, security sector reform, etc.