Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa says many governors in Nigeria have stopped wasting public funds on frivolous expenses.

“Governors are now looking inward on their spending and developed value for money. You don’t see wastages like you see before. You don’t see a governor going in a convoy of 30, 40 vehicles,” he stated during an interview aired on Channels TV on Sunday. “You will see us mostly now with three or four vehicles.”

Mr Badaru added, “Most of the governors have dropped those unnecessary expenditures to reduce the cost of governance. That is the first step to reduce the cost of governance.” 

The Jigawa governor also claimed that the governors were no longer misusing their security vote, usually humongous unspecified amount of funds allegedly dedicated for security matters.

“Our expenditure pattern on even the so-called security vote that people are talking about has dropped drastically. Some of us don’t even have any security vote,” claimed Mr Badaru. “We don’t have. I believe we are reducing expenditures to direct it to what will benefit the common man in our states. All governors are aware of this.”

Security votes, criticised by many Nigerians, is seen as a conduit pipe for governors and presidents to siphon public funds.

Transparency International in 2018 said, “Security votes’ are opaque corruption-prone security funding mechanisms widely used by Nigerian officials.” 

“Security votes run counter to both Nigerian democratic and constitutional norms as well as international best practices. Each of these vulnerabilities permit or facilitate different forms of corruption or prevent them from being detected,” the anti-corruption organisation stated.