2019 Election Budget: Senate Debates N53.6bn Vote for Security Agencies

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The Senate will today (Tuesday) deliberate on the N53.6 billion that has been earmarked for the security agencies to prosecute the February 2019 general elections.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, will at plenary this morning present the report of the committee for the larger house to debate and possibly approve the budget estimate.

The Senate had last Thursday approved N189.207 billion election budget for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ahead of the February 2019 polls with a proviso that that the amount should be vired from the Special Intervention Programme as captured in the Service Wide Votes of the 2018 Appropriation Act.

Also last Thursday, the National Assembly ‘s Joint Committee had met with heads of affected security agencies with a view to approving the N53.6 billion election budget proposal they presented to the National Assembly .

The committee headed by Senator Goje had directed the heads of security agencies present to hold Executive Sessions with Chairmen of Committees on Security and Intelligence, Police and Interior.

The security chiefs thereafter met with Chairman of Committee on Interior, Senator Andy Uba; Security and Intelligence, Shaba Lafiagi and that of Police, Senator Abu Ibrahim, in their respective offices at the Senate Building.

The committee as at yesterday afternoon was still meeting with a view to fine tuning the election budget proposals of the security agencies before presenting it at plenary today.

The breakdown of the N53.6 billion election budget for security agencies include N4.28 billion for the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA); Department of State Services (DSS) N12.25 billion; Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps N3.57billion; Nigeria Police Force N30.54billion and Nigeria Immigration Service N2.62billion.