Why I Never Received Security Votes As Lagos Governor – Fashola

Former Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola has said he never received any money known as a security vote while serving as governor of Lagos State.

Fashola made the statement on Friday during a panel discussion at The Platform in Lagos.

Naija News reports that the former Minister of Works said he often hear discussions about security votes among public officials but cannot relate to them because such an arrangement did not exist during his time as governor.

According to him, all government purchases and spending related to security matters were handled through the state’s Ministry of Budget and Planning.

He maintained that he never received any separate fund classified as a security vote throughout his administration.

The former governor said he could only speak from his own experience in office and insisted that no such payment was made available to him while he led the state.

Fashola explained that Lagos adopted a different approach to security funding by involving residents in the process.

He said the state established a Security Trust Fund that received support from individuals and organisations, allowing security operations to be funded through public contributions.

He said:  “This security vote thing, whenever I hear some of my colleagues talk about it, I don’t know what it means because I never had it in Lagos. Well, maybe you were the governor, but I was the governor, so I speak for what I know. I was the governor; there was no security vote.

“All our acquisitions were domiciled in the Ministry of Budget and Planning. So you were saying governors received something as a security vote. I don’t know if Governor Saraki [who was part of the panel] got that kind of money. I didn’t get it, and I don’t know where they were getting it. I was the governor.

“There was no security vote. Back in the day, we used to have a monthly security meeting. It was held every first Wednesday of the month for eight years, and I never missed that meeting. When Gen. Musa [minister of defence who was on the panel] was talking about transitions and high crime, I could connect with it because we took data every month. We set up a Security Trust Fund where people invested.

“The accounts and assets were audited, and every year we came to a town hall like this. We did not just come to talk to Lagosians about what we were doing with the resources; we also told them what we were doing in terms of crime, measuring the data of specific crimes from the previous year to see what had changed in the current year.”