A Political Finance Monitoring Group Is Urgently Needed

The use of money in elections is not new in Nigeria or in any part of the world. Money and other resources are needed for political parties to run their administration and for aspirants to run primaries, and then, the candidates who emerge from the primaries to execute the main elections. Essentially, politics involves the use and disbursement of resources. However, the use of money should simply enable aspirants to get across to the members of the party or delegates during primary elections and to sell their ideas or reasons for seeking office. Again, during the main elections, money and other resources enable the candidates to sell their ideas to the electorate.

The use of money has never been allowed for vote-buying or peddling undue influence on the electorate. Vote-buying, inducement, bribery, etc. have always been criminal offences under the various Electoral Act and Criminal Codes. Various punishments including prison sentences and fines have been imposed on such criminal conduct in the law books. The extant Electoral Act provides limitations of N1bn, N200m, N40m, N20m, N10m and N1m for candidates contesting president, governor, membership of the Senate, House of Representatives, state House of Assembly and councillor respectively. This is the ceiling the candidate can spend on their election but not the ceiling the political party can spend on the same election. The political party’s expenditure on a candidate in an election is not limited by law despite the fact that the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) gives the Independent National Electoral Commission, in consultation with political parties, the power to determine the maximum amount to be spent by a political party on candidates. Again, the maximum amount an individual can give to a political party is not limited by law.

All the foregoing gaps in the law can be filled by INEC through the use of its regulatory powers under Section 153 of the Electoral Act. Section 153 states that, “The Commission may, subject to the provisions of this Act, issue regulations, guidelines, or manuals for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of this Act and for its administration thereof.”

Aside from the foregoing, the monitoring of expenses of candidates for an election is a very tedious and difficult assignment. INEC as presently resourced and staffed cannot effectively monitor expenditures of candidates from the 91 political parties across the federation. Also, despite the attempts by the financial regulatory agencies and various laws against money laundering, Nigeria to a great extent still runs a cash-based economy. This is more the case in politics as politicians spend huge amounts of money which cannot be justifiable in normal ethical and legal jurisdictions. It is a notorious fact that delegates electing candidates demand and receive money and generally vote for the highest bidder. These monies are disbursed sometimes in foreign currencies such as the United States dollar. It is another notorious fact that many candidates, especially those with deep pockets or incumbents who control public allocations spend above the ceilings provided for candidates in the Electoral Act. Monies do not change hands officially, but behind closed doors and sometimes in the dead of the night where no one, including INEC officials or the security agencies is watching.

The above creates the need for a stakeholder group such as the Political Finance Monitoring Group that brings various competencies to the table, to be involved in campaign finance monitoring under the leadership of INEC. The key stakeholder-groups include INEC, political parties, the police, other security agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, the media, academia, National Broadcasting Commission, Nigeria Communications Commission, Code of Conduct Bureau, Central Bank of Nigeria, Financial Intelligence Unit, Federal Inland Revenue Service and civil society organisations.

Such a group should meet regularly and the stakeholders will provide an array of information to it which can be used for follow-up on remedial and enforcement action. Happily, INEC has by regulation demanded that all candidates should report on their campaign expenditure. It could also ask the candidates and political parties to open dedicated campaign finance bank accounts which will receive all income and through which all expenditure will be made.

All inflows and outflows from such dedicated accounts can be monitored by the CBN, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the relevant security agencies. The Federal Inland Revenue Service should be interested in the tax status of persons who make huge donations to campaigns and political parties; the Broadcasting Commission should be able to give an account of campaign money spent in the electronic media; the Communications Commission will bring information on expenditure that runs through the mobile networks. The political parties will be watching each other and make information available on expenditures that run afoul of the rules; civil society and media as watchdogs and pillars of integrity will provide further information to the group while security agencies will investigate reported breaches. Political parties having broad membership and entrenched in communities will be best suited to provide information and evidence from the grassroots on the extant campaign finance practices of their members and other political party members. The group provides the opportunity to review developments, actions and inactions of various groups, candidates and political parties during the campaigns and election and call for preventive, remedial or proactive action to curtail the breaches.

A Political Finance Monitoring Group that engages its stakeholders will lead to alliance building, knowledge and information exchange, effective monitoring of campaign finance and evaluation of different available options of monitoring and enforcement, strengthen accountability and lead to innovations. The PFMG will seek to revive the full implementation of all campaign finance guidelines and regulations issued by INEC, extant standards and Code of Ethics for Political Parties and seek voluntary compliance by political parties and candidates. It will engage the public, increase demand for accountability and generate evidence for the review of campaign finance laws and policies after the elections.

Evidence available from recent and previous elections indicates the increasing use of money to influence voters arising from an impoverished electorate who are in dire straits. No one can do the monitoring and enforcement of campaign finance laws alone – INEC or any single agency or stakeholder group. Candidates and parties can be stopped from inducing the electorate, violators of the law need to need to be prosecuted and punished and in the long run, the laws will be reviewed to become more fit and proper for the Nigerian society.