- The Court of Appeal in Abuja has said failure of public officers to give an account of security votes entrusted to them amounts to stealing
- The judge said any public officer in charge of such funds must either account for them or return them to the public coffers
- The Court of Appeal also upheld the conviction of former governors of Taraba and Plateau states, Reverend Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye on reduced jail terms
Failure of public officers to give an account of security votes entrusted to them amounts to stealing or criminal misappropriation, the Court of Appeal in Abuja has said. The court added that it is akin to genocide, The Punch reports.
Legit.ng gathered that this formed part of the reasons the Court of Appeal on Friday, November 16, affirmed the conviction of former Governor of Taraba state, Jolly Nyame, whom the High Court of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory had earlier convicted and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment on June 30, 2018.
Similarly the appellate court, in a decision by a different panel, equally affirmed the conviction of former Plateau state governor, Joshua Dariye.
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In the judgment read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, of the three-man appellate court panel on Nyame’s appeal, noted that in Nigeria, there was a “pervasive tendency by public officers to regard or treat security votes given to them for security of the state as their personal entitlement or funds”.
Justice Agim said any public officer in charge of such funds must either account for them or return them to the public coffers, saying the failure to do so would amount to stealing.
He said: “Every public officer or servant who receives government or public funds as security votes or however described for security or other public purposes must use the money for the purpose, or render an account showing that it has been used for such purpose or return the money to the government treasury if it has not been used.
“If the recipient of such funds cannot account for the use of such funds for the purpose it was meant and has not returned same to the government treasury, then that is clear stealing of public funds or criminal breach of trust or criminal misappropriation of funds.”
Justice Agim said the defence put forward by the defence lawyer suggested that Nyame “believed that as a governor, the security votes were his personal entitlement to be used as he pleased without any responsibility to explain how he used same and that since it is his entitlement, he cannot be said to have stolen same. This belief is completely wrong,” the judge said.
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Legit.ng previously reported that Transparency International disclosed that offices of the president, 36 governors and 774 local government chairmen across Nigeria, annually spends N241 billion on security votes which are not subject to audit or legislative oversight.
Christina Hildrew, the Africa director for TI’s defence and security programme, on Wednesday, September 5, made this known at a two-day event organised by the civil society legislative advocacy centre in Abuja.
The event was titled, ‘Impact of Anti-Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Legislative, Policy and Institutional Gaps to Investigate, Prosecute and Convict for Anti-Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flow charges.’
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Source: Legit.ng
