You collect billions in security votes every month, so why are 39 children still in the jungle, Governor Makinde?
There is a word that Nigerians are now placing at the centre of the Oyo kidnapping crisis and it is not “constitution.” It is security vote.
While Governor Seyi Makinde has repeatedly cited constitutional limitations as the reason his hands are tied over the abduction of 39 students and several teachers from three schools in Oriire Local Government Area on May 15, 2026, a growing chorus of critics is asking a sharper, more uncomfortable question: what, then, is the security vote for?
Lere Olayinka, a journalist and political commentator aligned with the opposition APC, made the point bluntly in a post that has since gone viral. “Governors have the power to collect security vote monthly, but they don’t have control over security agencies in their states, abi?” he wrote, in a pointed swipe at Makinde. He went further, alleging that Makinde collected ₦30 billion for victims of the January 2024 gas explosion in Ibadan, money he claims was never fully accounted for. The governor’s office has not publicly responded to that specific allegation.
Whether or not one agrees with Olayinka’s politics, the question he raises is constitutionally and financially legitimate and it deserves a serious answer.
What is a security vote, and how much does Oyo collect?
The security vote is a monthly cash allocation given to each of Nigeria’s 36 state governors, ostensibly to fund urgent security interventions that fall outside normal budget lines. Unlike regular appropriations, the security vote is not subject to legislative scrutiny. Governors spend it at their discretion, with no obligation to publish accounts, present receipts, or explain outcomes.
According to available data, Oyo State receives approximately ₦1 billion in security vote every month, that is ₦12 billion annually, and upwards of ₦48 billion over a single four-year term. Transparency International has estimated that Nigeria’s total annual security vote disbursements across all tiers of government exceed $600 million, more than the combined annual budgets of the Nigerian Army and Police Force.
The bitter irony is visible: Nigeria spends more on security vote than it spends on its actual security institutions and yet, 39 children remain in a forest in Oyo State with their captors.
Read also: Security in Nigeria: Are governors powerless, or just passing blame?
Makinde’s own words: A constitutional argument that has now backfired
As we reported in our earlier investigation, Governor Makinde while accepting the presidential nomination of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) in Ibadan, acknowledged the crisis but leaned heavily on the constitution for cover. “As Governor of Oyo State, I carry the burden of being called the Chief Security Officer of the state, yet lacking constitutional control over the security agencies required to fully address these threats,” he said.
He added that no governor should be blamed for insecurity when they do not control the agencies responsible for tackling it, and promised to reform Nigeria’s security architecture if elected president in 2027.
To many Nigerians, the timing was jarring. Children are missing. Teachers have been killed. And the man constitutionally styled as Chief Security Officer of Oyo State is using the same crisis as a campaign platform.
It is worth pointing out: the APC has confirmed that Makinde never submitted a memorandum when sixteen governors were invited in March 2024 to contribute to the modalities for establishing state police, a reform he now claims to champion. “He has never been denied the monthly payment of security vote which runs into billions of naira,” the APC noted in a recent statement. “Makinde should sit up and rescue all abductees immediately.”
The Fayose standard: What a Governor can do when he chooses to
Here is where the debate gets most instructive. In 2016, when Ekiti State faced a surge of attacks by armed herders, Governor Ayodele Fayose did not call a press conference to explain the limits of his constitutional powers. He acted.
Fayose mobilised local hunters and vigilante networks, funding them, among other resources, with his state’s security vote. He engaged the military and police, not as a helpless supplicant but as the political head of a state demanding action. Most critically, he pushed the Ekiti State House of Assembly to pass the Anti-Grazing Law 2016, which he signed into law that same year. The law banned open grazing between 6 pm and 7 am, criminalised armed herding, mandated the confiscation of cattle found in violation, and empowered agricultural officers to assess and invoice damages to farmlands. Violators faced six months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine.
When a pregnant woman was killed at Orin Ekiti Farm Settlement, Fayose did not state sympathies and cite the Inspector-General of Police. He summoned Fulani leaders directly to Government House. He named a suspect, the son of a Fulani leader, Alhaji Abache and issued an ultimatum: produce the boy within one week, or leave Ekiti State. Within three days, the suspect was produced.
That is what gubernatorial authority looks like when exercised with political will.
Fayose did not control the Nigeria Police Force. He did not have state police. He faced the same Section 215 constitutional constraints that Makinde now invokes. What he had and chose to use was moral authority, executive boldness, legal creativity, and yes, a security vote he was willing to deploy visibly and aggressively.
Critics of Nigerian governance have long described the security vote as one of the most scandalous fixtures in the country’s public finance architecture. It is, in the words of Transparency International, a “cancerous tumour in the state budget”, a monthly slush fund dispensed without audit, without legislative oversight, and without measurable outcomes.
In 2021 alone, state and local government leaders reportedly collected over ₦375 billion in security votes nationally. Petitions before the EFCC and ICPC suggest much of these funds never reached the security agencies they were meant to support.
The security vote was not designed to be a passive allowance. It was specifically created to give governors the financial agility to respond to exactly the kind of crisis unfolding in Oriire. It is the emergency fund for emergencies. If a governor cannot explain what he has done with it in the weeks since 39 children were taken, the constitutional argument becomes not just weak; it becomes a smokescreen.
Governor Makinde is not wrong that Nigeria’s security architecture is deeply flawed. He is not wrong that a governor commanding a Commissioner of Police is, constitutionally, a courtesy rather than a command. These are real problems that real reform must fix.
But the conversation cannot end there. Not while the security vote flows into Oyo Government House every month. Not while Amotekun exists as a deployable force. Not while the Fayose standard, imperfect, controversial, but demonstrably effective, sits in the recent history of the same southwestern region as a benchmark of what is possible.
We can debate constitutional architecture. But we cannot pretend that billions in monthly security vote, a regional security outfit, a state legislature, and the full political weight of a governor’s office add up to helplessness.
