The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) spent N11,665,532,033 on campaign expenses in the last presidential election, which the current President, Muhammadu Buhari won.
Findings of the monitoring of campaign financial and use of state administrative resources in the 2015 presidential election carried out by the Centre for Social Justice have revealed.
While the Independent National National Electoral Commission (INEC), under its former chairman, Attahiru Jega, placed a ceiling of N1 billion for presidential campaign, the report presented by Centre for Social Justice indicated that not only that the two major political parties in Nigeria spent above the stipulated amount, but they also delved their hands into states treasuries to fund their political campaigns.
Eze Onyekpere, the lead director of the group at a press briefing in Abuja, stated that absence of no provision for cash, paper and bank trail, which would have facilitated reporting by candidates and monitoring by INEC to determine the accuracy of the candidate’s reports, aided the excessive spendings at the last general elections.
While giving the breakdown of both the PDP and the APC’s campaign expenses, Onyekpere said the PDP, whose candidate was the former president, Goodluck Jonathan spent at least N1,280,374,870,00 on campaigns and rallies alone, while the then opposition party, the APC spent N671,062,200,00.
“Expenses spent on bill boards by PDP was N473,160,000,000 while that of APC stood at N190,380,000,00; on electronic media campaign, PDP spent N532,100,000,00 while APC spent N410,050,000,00; on electronic media and advertisement, PDP spent N3,988,822,125,00 and APC spent N1,064,706,850,00. On print media campaign, the PDP spent N2,475,228,301,00 and APC spent N579,647,687,00,” according to the report.
Onyekpere expressed worries that the amount spent on campaigns were unimaginable in view of the country’s economic challenges just as he advised the National Assembly to review in INEC Electoral Act the raising of the ceiling of N1 billion for presidential campaign to N5 billion so as to “mount a viable campaign for the presidency.”
“The review to N5 billion should not be contained in the body of the Electoral Act. Rather, the Act should be amended and the power to determine the ceiling across all the elections given to INEC. This power will be exercised from time to time based on changes in the economy after consultation with relevant stakeholders and the public. The stakeholders will include the political parties, campaign organisations, Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria, Security agencies and Civil Society Working in the Field of elections.
“Donations to candidates and political parties should be made tax deductable up to a maximum limit of the N1million ceiling for individual donations to candidates and the electoral Act should provide compulsory collaboration between government agencies such as Federal Inland Revenue Service, INEC and the anti-corruption agencies to determine the source of funds donated to candidates and political parties.
Also, FIRS to verify their tax payments to the treasury should follow up donors.
CSG also recommended that INEC Guidelines using its powers under section 153 of the Electoral Act just as it advised political parties to ensure full compliance with extant provisions of the law and guidelines of INEC should regulate the costs of expression of interest forms.
KEHINDE ABDULSALAM
