You can’t query how I spend my security vote, Oyo Gov tells EFCC

The Oyo State government had, last Friday, instituted the case noting that the EFCC had since August 2021 been constantly requesting for financial documents that could be interpreted as auditing and investigating the expenditure of funds such that it denudes powers of the state governor as contained in section 176 of the constitution as Chief Security Officer of the state.

The state government had in the suit FHC/IB/23/22 pointed to a clash between the provision of the 1999 constitution (as amended) and the EFCC Act of 2004, going by the EFCC questioning of how the state government expended and disbursed its security vote, other contingency funds, and the consolidated revenue fund.

It argued that Section 80 to 88 of the 1999 constitution created Consolidated Revenue Fund and Contingency Fund and put disbursement of the funds within the purview of the president while investigating into the disbursement and expenditure of the funds is the duty of the National Assembly.

Similarly, the suit held that sections 120 to 128 created the Consolidated Revenue Fund and Contingency Fund for the state government with disbursement and expenditure of funds within the purview of the governor while investigating of waste, corruption, inefficiency in expenditure is the function of the House of Assembly.

Though it noted that Section 6 of the EFCC Act 2004 provided for powers of the EFCC to investigate economic and financial crimes, the Oyo State government, in the suit held on to the constitutional provision that it is the duty of the legislature to conduct an investigation into disbursement and expenditure of the funds.

Also questioning the powers of the EFCC, the state government had argued that section 125 of the 1999 constitution established the Auditor-General of the state and imbued it with powers to audit public funds.

To this end, the state government argued that as long as the Auditor-General of the State House of Assembly had not complained to the EFCC, it could not continue to request for state documents tantamount to conducting an investigation into how the state expended Consolidated Revenue Fund and Contingency Fund, that is inclusive of security vote.

In particular, the state government had frowned on alleged intermittent molestation, quizzing of top state officials since August last year, with last Friday’s quizzing of the state Accountant-General, Mr. Gafar Bello, being the latest.

Bello was released from EFCC detention on Monday evening after over 72 hours.

—Tribune