Money is the lifeblood of politics across the world but the abuse of the laws guiding how it is spent by politicians, especially on elections, continues to hurt democracy.
As the political actors start their campaign activities for the 2023 general elections, PREMIUM TIMES observed that the electoral commission remains uninterested in enforcing the relevant laws stipulated in the constitution on expenditure for elections and political activities.As in many democracies, political parties in Nigeria attract funds for their operations and activities through contributions from members and supporters, and donations from corporate organisations.
The Action Democratic Party partially complied with this provision as it submitted its expenses within the stipulated window, but without accompanying it with a court affidavit as mandated by the law. PREMIUM TIMES had approached INEC spokesperson, Festus Okoye, with the request but was directed to the EPM Director as Mr Okoye said he had no information on the subject.There are three financial reports that political parties are expected by law to submit to INEC. They are the election contributions report, election expenses report and annual report.
These mandates were reinforced in the 2022 amendment to the Electoral Act signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in May. President Buhari and Atiku Abubakar were the candidates of the APC and PDP respectively in the 2019 race. Despite being caught out for breaching this section, neither the APC nor the PDP has paid the expected fine nor forfeited the excess of N3.6 and N2.2 billion they respectively incurred during the last presidential poll.
While the ruling APC and its main opposition PDP remain dominant because they have established visible structures across the country, at least two other parties are being closely watched to challenge them in this cycle, especially in the presidential poll. The LP scored 66.7 for meeting other criteria except submitting their yearly budget and internal audit report.
The leaders of AA and AAC said INEC was culpable in their internal crises that diverted their attention from party governance. “It took three years before a court determined who the national leader of the party was. From that 2019 till sometime in March 2022 was when AA was able to sort out its issue of national leadership.
The national chairmen of APGA and Labour Party, Victor Oye and Julius Abure respectively; and the spokespersons of APC and PDP, Felix Morka and Debo Ologunagba respectively, did not answer numerous calls made to them in attempts to get their comments on this report.A Senior Programme Officer at the Centre for Democracy and Development , Austin Aigbe, blamed the unchecked infractions by political parties on loopholes in the Electoral Act despite its latest amendments.
“I have said consistently that INEC is unable to monitor political parties’ campaign funding. In any case, there are usually non-state actors, individuals or groups of individuals, some of them will even call themselves CSOs and said they have contributed N1 million to someone’s campaign. They will put up a billboard, saying courtesy, you will see someone’s picture. You cannot calculate that person’s billboard as the spending of a candidate,” he explained in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES.
Demons of Nigeria.
INEC inecnigeria is heavily compromised.