Budget 2012 (8) – Paramilitary Nation By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai

We conclude our review of the
security sector budget today by
looking at our several paramilitary
organizations, their mandates,
operations and budgetary
provisions in the 2012 proposals.
The paramilitary agencies are the
four supervised by the Minister of
Interior, the Federal Road Safety
Commission (FRSC) tucked away
under the office of the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation,
the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)
under the Minister of Finance, and
the Aviation Security Service
(Avisec), an administrative creation
of that Ministry, post-911.
These seven agencies combined
employ about the same number of
people as the Nigeria Police Force,
and spend nearly as much. Apart
from Avisec whose source of funding
is unclear from the budget, and the
NCS which gets 7% of its collection
as “internal revenue”, the five
agencies will consume about N195
billion in 2012. The NCS collected
some N742 billion in 2011, so it is
entitled to at least N52 billion in this
year’s budget. Indeed, the NCS is on
track to collect about N 1trillion in
2012, which would raise its budget
to some N70 billion. And this tally
excludes the budgets of EFCC
(N11bn) and ICPC (N4.2bn). When
the N70 billion or so for NCS is
added to the N195 billion for the
other five agencies and an
allowance is made for Avisec, the
total of about N280bn constitutes
key components of our national
security spending – making our
country a paramilitary nation, if not
a totally militarized ‘democracy’!
The prisons system is a key part of
the tripod that makes up every
country’s criminal justice system –
the Police, the Courts and Prisons.
Prisons are established to restrain
convicted offenders from being a
danger to the society, rehabilitating
the offenders, deterring and
reforming them while in custody,
and preparing the persons for
reintegration into civil society. A
prison system must therefore be
assessed on how effectively it
carries out these functions, ably
assisted by the other criminal
justice components.
Our nation’s prisons system came
into being proper in 1872 when the
British Consul administering the
Colony of Lagos opened the Broad
Street Prison with a capacity for 300
inmates. By 1910, similar facilities
had been extended to Degema,
Calabar, Benin, Ibadan, Sapele,
Jebba and Lokoja. In the then
Northern Protectorate, the Emir’s
existing “Gidan Yari” were
designated as Native Authority
Prisons, and remained so until they
were abolished by the Gowon
administration in 1968.
Today the Nigerian Prisons Service
(NPS) is a huge national institution
with 144 convict prisons, 83
satellite prisons, 1 open prison
camp, 2 borstal institutions, 11
mechanized farms, 9 subsidiary
farms, 9 cottage industries, 4
training schools, and 1 staff college,
employing nearly 40,000 people in
2006. The NPS is headed by a
Comptroller-General of Prisons,
assisted by deputies in charge of six
departments, supervising 8 zonal
commands, and 36 state
commands, overseeing 227 prisons
nationally. All prisons in Nigeria are
federally-controlled, just like the
Nigeria Police Force.
The installed capacity of the prisons
was about 43,915 beds in 2009,
and accommodated about 40,000
inmates – indicating that there is no
congestion in our prisons. This
national average obscures two
peculiarities of our prisons – (1) the
disproportionate number of persons
detained awaiting trial (ATP), and
(2) the excessive concentration of
ATPs in, and resulting congestion of
urban prisons. For instance, in
2009, the Port Harcourt Prison with
a capacity for 800 inmates had
2,500 prisoners out of which only
284 were convicts. Owerri Prison
with a capacity for 548 prisoners
had 1,200 out of which only 106
were convicts. A research report
published by Amnesty International
in February 2008 summarized the
situation so succinctly:
“Nigeria’s prisons are filled with
people whose human rights are
systematically violated.
Approximately 65 per cent of the
inmates are awaiting trial most of
whom have been
waiting for their trial for years. Most
of the people in Nigeria’s prisons are
too poor to be able to pay lawyers,
and only one in seven of those
awaiting trial have private legal
representation.”
The ATP problem is proof that our
criminal justice system is
completely broken. In Ghana, only
30% of the prison population is
awaiting trial. In South Africa, it is
only 30%, Even Tanzania and
neighboring Cameroon are doing
better at 50% and 58% respectively,
compared with our disgraceful 71%
in 2009! If our criminal justice
system works better, we should
expect to see more convictions and
a rise in the ratio of convicts to total
prisoner population. It is suggested
that the report of the Presidential
Commission on the Administration
of Justice (2006) be revisited so that
all the ATP cases be dealt with to
decongest our urban prisons. This
will reduce the burden on society of
the time wasted, pain inflicted,
stigma and loss of opportunities
that those detained awaiting trial,
suffer only to be found innocent.
And with this, the N56.7bn to be
spent in 2012 on our prisons
system may well be justified. The
food ration budget this year is about
N5bn. So we intend to spend
N125,000 per prisoner this year
(about N340 daily) to feed about
40,000 detainees. Imagine how
much better the prisoners will feed,
or how much more we can save if
70% of those detained are not in
prisons!
The Nigeria Immigration Service
(NIS) is in charge of regulating the
entry and exit of persons into and
out of Nigeria, including matters
related to the residency of aliens,
the permission to work and issuance
of passports and similar travel
documents to Nigerian citizens. NIS
was formed initially by Ordinance in
1958 with seconded officers from
the Nigeria Police Force. It came into
being as an independent
department in 1963 when the
Tafawa Balewa government passed
a law creating the department as
part of the civil service.
Since then, the immigration
department has gone through many
mutations, and today, is a
paramilitary service headed by a
Comptroller-General, assisted by
deputies in charge of three
departments, supervising eight
zonal offices, 37 state commands
and offices in each of the 774 local
governments of Nigeria.
The proposed budget of the NIS for
2012 is N37.4bn made up of
N33.56bn for personnel costs,
N2.03bn for overheads and N1.8bn
for capital investments. Some
interesting provisions in the budget
include N153.9 million as “security
vote”, N175 million for domestic
travel, N200 million for border patrol
vehicles, N100 million for
surveillance, communication and
intelligence-gathering equipment,
and N35 million for purchase of
arms and ammunition! Others are
N412 million for reactivation of
aircraft, N37 million for solar-
powered boreholes and N38 million
for solar generators.
The Nigeria Security and Civil
Defence Corps was established by
the National Assembly in 2003. Prior
to this, it started simply as a civil
defence organization during the war
as Lagos Civil Defence Committee to
sensitize citizens about conduct
during air raids, bomb attacks and
so on. The NSCDC is now headed by
a Comptroller-General who is
assisted by four deputies, and eight
zonal assistant CGs overseeing 37
state commands. The Corps work
with other law enforcement and
security organizations in a
complimentary role, but in the
opinion of many, simply duplicate
the functions of, and divert
resources that should properly go to
agencies like the Police and SSS.
The proposed budget of the NSCDC
for 2012 is N56.2bn, comprised of
N52.5bn for personnel costs,
N2.7bn for overheads and N1 billion
for capital projects. Just like the NIS,
the budget includes N158 million as
“security vote”, N105 million for
“publicity and adverts”, N50 million
for ambulances, N47 million for anti-
riot equipment, N40 million for
mobile baggage scanner, N15
million for VSAT communications
solution, and N55 million for arms
and ammunition!
The Federal Fire Service (FFS) is the
fourth “paramilitary” organization
under the Minister of Interior, and it
is a strange animal indeed. Fire
fighting and control are local or at
best state matters, and not properly
federal. Indeed, a cabinet
committee under former SGF, Chief
Ufot Ekaette had in 2006
recommended its conversion into a
regulatory commission and the
hand-over of its assets in Abuja and
Lagos to the relevant state
administrations. It is only the policy
reversals of the Yar’Adua-Jonathan
administration that has enabled it to
still exist intact. Though its budget
is a modest N3bn, including a N10
million security vote, N89 million for
adverts, and N490 millon to build a
‘National Fire Academy’! It is time to
revisit the Ekaette Committee
report, restructure the FFS into a
slim regulator and save this
annually wasted amount. The FFS
as currently organized has no place
in our federal system.
The rest of the budget of the
Ministry of Interior consists of the
Ministry (N2.5bn), Civil Defence,
Immigration and Prisons Board
(N204 million), Customs,
Immigration and Prisons Pension
Office with N1.3bn under the
Ministry and another N8.6bn as a
charge on the Consolidated
Revenue Fund, that is a total of
about N10bn.
The Federal Road Safety
Commission (FRSC) was founded in
1988 by the Babangida
administration with Professor Wole
Soyinka as the founding chairman,
with the mandate of accident
prevention and loss reduction on
our federal highways. Its enabling
law has gone through several
amendments and re-enactments
into the national organization it has
now become, situated in the
presidency and supervised by the
SGF.
The FRSC is headed by a Corps
Marshall assisted by eight deputies
overseeing departments and in
charge of 12 specialized units, 12
zonal commands and 164 sector
commands all over the country. The
proposed budget of FRSC for 2012
is N28.9bn made up of N26.5bn for
personnel cost, N1.5bn for
overheads and N849 million for
capital projects. I was relieved not to
find any “security vote” in the FRSC
budget, most of the spending
priorities and provisions were
sensible and did not appear to
duplicate provisions in the budgets
of the Police and other agencies.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)
began life in 1891 headed by a
British Director-General before
becoming the department of
customs and excise in 1922. The
Customs and Excise Management
Act (CEMA) 1958 established the
department under the Minister of
Finance. Between 1986 and 1992,
the department was placed under
the supervision of the Minister of
Internal Affairs. Today, it is an
autonomous paramilitary
organization headed by a
Comptroller-General, assisted by
four deputies supervising 25 area
commands all over the country.
The main job of the NCS is trade
facilitation, checking smuggling and
earning revenues for the
government through the oversight
of imports and exports. The NCS is
funded off-budget via a 7%
deduction on revenues collected –
an incentive system that has led to
rapid increases in revenue
collection. The budget of the NCS
this year will be between N52bn and
N70bn! With the implementation of
ASYCUDA++, installation of
scanners, intensive training and
incentivizing of personnel, it is
expected that the NCS will
discharge its statutory functions
better, for the benefit of Nigeria.
For the past 8 weeks, we have
looked closely at the amounts
proposed to be spent by all the
agencies charged with protecting
our lives and property. Combined
they will cost us at least N3.1 billion
daily, including weekends in 2012.
We are therefore entitled to expect
to sleep well, but we don’t. Some of
them have become greater threats
to our freedom and peaceful
coexistence than the insurgents
that we fear. They must re-
strategize to protect us better, and
justify what we spend on them.