From Muhammad Ibrahim, Kaduna
An elder statesman and former governor of north-western States, Alhaji Usman Farouk has disclosed that the 18 northern states of the country have spent 3 trillion naira to provide security in their states from 2009 to date.
According to him, the money was spent in buying vehicles and providing accommodation for security agents in the states.
Addressing newsmen in Kaduna, Farouk said it was not the responsibility of state governments to spend such amount of money for security, because national security is the responsibility of the
federal government.
He urged the federal government to refund such huge amount of money to the affected states, if the security situation in the country stabilizes.
“I served as a chairman of Northern Summit held in Kano, where we discussed insecurity in Nigeria, in the light of that, I was able to gathered evidence from my own experience as a security operator and a former governor who served during the civil war that the whole of the northern states minus Kwara state incurred lot of expenditure ranging from the vehicles they bought for security agents and accommodation they gave to security agencies. I estimated it to the tune of 3 trillion naira expenditure in just 18 states of the federation, plus Abuja.” The former governor stated.
According to him, “This is a lot of money. As a chairman at that summit, I saw armored vehicles that cost millions bought by a state governor, I saw 100 of other vehicles bought and given to security agents; these are all the responsibility of the federal government.
State governments have no business to buy a single bicycle for security forces, because they belong to federal government,” he said.
Under our laws, as a former governor, national security is the responsibility of the federal government. Whatever a state governor incurs in terms of security expenditure should be refunded when the crisis are over because he has no vote for that purpose. His vote was given to him for the development of schools, roads and so on.” He further said Farouk explained that the 18 states deserve a refund of what they spent on security because apart from the damage done to their properties and loss of lives, they still spent 3 trillion naira for security on behalf of the federal government.
“That money must be paid back to them. In addition to these I think the federal government needs to borrow a thing from General Gowon administration, which after the end of civil war in 70s the government introduced the policy of 3Rs: reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation.
“Billions of naira was moved to take care of the people of Biafra, the situation we found ourselves then was same with the situation of Boko Haram now. The federal government should apply the 3Rs in the 18 states of the federation with Borno, Yobe, Adamawa states leading the path.
“If this is not done, I think there is no justice for us. Again, I still urge the federal government to do more in ensuring insecurity issues are addressed in this country,” he added.
