Governor El-Rufai has just proved by laying bare the financials of Kaduna State including the omnibus security votes collectively treated by the governors as personal allowance exiguous of public accounts.
It is particularly gratifying taking a cursory look at the details of the security vote that El-Rufai found it expedient to include CCTV cameras in the security architecture of Kaduna state. This is an infrastructure not considered a priority by most state governors including the one with ballooning IGR worth multiples of Kaduna state’s IGR.
Needless to say that CCTV camera remains global basic security metrics for cosmopolitan administration yet many governors are being festooned with medals for constructing roads as if road construction is a template of modern governance.
One other shocking revelation from El-Rufai’s disclosure is the stipendiary nature of governor’s basic salary. If a governor is made to earn less than N500,000 in basic salary and the same person is made to Steward several billions of naira through a very fluid, opaque and an untitled house of assembly it seems this a constitutional license for the governor to steal.
The speaker of the House of Representatives further validated the opacity and lack of transparency in the Naas by asking El-Rufai to take the lead in disclosing his state’s financials.
A National Assembly that is spending more than many states of the federation combined is superfluous for this austere dispensation and must be cut to size.
Governor El-Rufai has scored another first in act of patriotism and any state governor that fails to follow suit ought to be treated as the enemy of the people not deserving of the position he occupies.
For the National Assembly, the exigency of change has finally boxed them to a decisive corner of mandated transparency, removal of exchequer translucence will put legislative financial excesses in abeyance.
Bukola Ajisola, [email protected]
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