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From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has reiterated the need for the non-state actors including civil society, media and other stakeholders to be committed to monitoring and tracking the defence budget as a deliberate effort to address the issue of insecurity in the country.
CISLAC in collaboration with Transparency International – Defence and Security programme with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands convened Civil Society organisations and media Anti-corruption training on defence budget tracking, monitoring and reporting for stakeholders at a hotel in Kaduna.
Speaking during a presentation titled “the consequence of defence accountability gap on human security: understanding the effect, Conflict Advisor, CISLAC, Salaudeen Hashim said, even though there have been consistent calls for improved budgetary provisions for defence, it is important to ensure the available budget and releases are judiciously utilised for the purposes they are meant for.
According to him, his organisation has been strengthening the capacity of the lawmakers who are constitutionally recognised to oversee budget implementations across the ministries, departments and agencies of government across the country.
“We are in Kaduna today to equip civil society organisations on what they need to understand to enable them to engage with the issue of security which has been a very big challenge for us in the country as a whole and Kaduna in particular. Kaduna has come out very clear because of the persistent attacks and harm the civilians are suffering.
“So, CISLAC saw the need to bring the state and non-state actors together to discuss the challenges and look at what we can do differently because Nigerians need to enjoy dividends of democracy and of course, the manor priority of the state government is to offer that protection.
“The moment the citizens don’t enjoy that safety, then, they begin to distrust their government leaders. So, we want to help the government build that confidence and at the same time train the non-state actors so they can build their charter of need and allow the state to put a mechanism for protection.
“Most importantly to ensure that every money that goes into security relations should be spent judiciously and with every form of accountability”, he said.
He further stressed that “the legislature has not developed adequate skills to meet the expectation and help them to provide external oversight. They appropriate the funds, go for some oversight and do some debates and make laws for these agencies.
“So in all of these, the parliament must have the capacity to understand how security functions and part of this project is to also build them to help them know the questions they need to ask and to look out for when they go for oversight visits”.
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