Upon assumption of office, one of the first issues of monumental corruption revealed by the Muhammadu Buhari administration was the diversion and distribution of money meant for developmental purposes to political actors for presidential and other campaigns by the former National Security Adviser to the outgone administration. Indeed, the media feasted on the revelations and it was dubbed “Dasukigate”. In the last couple of days, the anti-corruption agencies are still charging new politically exposed persons to court for the said diversion of money. The popular sentiment in Nigeria is that all diverted monies should be recovered and returned to the treasury and anyone found wanting for violating the laws should be penalised in accordance with due process.
There was a popular expectation that since what was revealed in the Sambo Dasuki scandal is a political or campaign finance malfeasance that the government was going to initiate reforms to plug the loopholes that could enable a repeat performance of the same malfeasance. This raises the posers: How would political parties and candidates raise resources for electioneering without violating the relevant laws? What incentives would be available to enable popular participation in campaign financing? How would campaign finance be made more transparent and accountable to the people? How can we block the use of public resources for unauthorised partisan purposes? A lot of questions are hanging for which the government of the day has failed and neglected to provide answers.
With the reforms so far unfurled by the Buhari administration, it seems that campaign finance reform is not on the agenda any more. There is no proposal for the amendment of the Electoral Act or an executive policy which would have plugged the campaign finance leaks. But this is not the way to go. Societies succeed and make progress through learning from mistakes of the past and saying “never again” through the instrumentality of reforms. If we fail to initiate reforms, we are likely to repeat the same malfeasance in the 2019 and future elections.
But there is an aspect of the 2015 campaign finance imbroglio which no one has asked critical questions about. Somehow, we know how the ruling party in the previous administration, the Peoples Democratic Party funded their electioneering, how did the current ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, fund its way to power? Did the APC raise its hands in the air and conjured funds from nowhere or did they not pay for the expenses that go with electioneering? Every reasonable person knows the cost of moving around in chartered aircraft, lodging in the most expensive hotels, hiring stadiums, top grade musicians and comedians, paying agents across all the polling booths in the federation, newspaper, radio and television advertisements, etc. The former ruling party might have spent more than the APC in the 2015 elections, but definitely, the latter still spent a humungous amount of money.
In the last couple of weeks, the media reported of the demand made by the APC for all its governors to cough up N250m each to pay for the national convention of the party. Although the party executives tried to put a spin to it by indicating that the governors were supposed to pay dues to the party, the question is: What manner of dues would amount to N250m for a governor? To the best of my knowledge, no governor earns up to N250m in the four years of occupying the seat if we are to use their remuneration as detailed by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. Every legitimate income combined, from their basic and the plethora of allowances, no governor would earn up to half of that amount in four years. So, where did the APC expect the governors to get the money from if it did not directly and indirectly encourage them to steal state resources and hand them over to the party secretariat?
The impression one gets out of the foregoing is that there is no honesty of purpose and volition to tackle political finance challenges by the current administration. It seems the administration is bent on building cheap political capital out of the misdeeds of the previous administration whilst keeping quiet on its own violations of the law. Once the law becomes selective whether in investigation or prosecution, it simply becomes a weapon of mischief in the hands of an incumbent and makes electioneering more of a “do-or-die” affair, a winner-takes-all contest that would be fought with all ferocity.
Thus, as we head to the 2019 elections, we need an honest and decent conversation about political party and election funding where key actors and the Nigerian society will appraise the challenges and come out with solutions to the issues raised. Campaign finance challenges did not start today but it has continued because of the lack of resolve and dishonesty of leadership. From the days of the Forster Sutton Tribunal up to the Coker Commission, to the Buhari/Idiagbon administration that jailed politicians for election related expenditures, the challenge has refused to go away because no one has attended to it.
In the final analysis, what is required is an honest disclosure of the issues and challenges by all stakeholders. Nigeria has enough creative men and women who can bring solutions to the table. There can be no better time to have this discussion than now considering that the 2019 elections are around the corner and we need to avoid a repeat of 2015. We are not an island, all alone by ourselves in the world; we can borrow ideas. State funding could be an option; tax incentive to ensure that Nigerians can donate more to campaigns is yet another option. Tighter public finance rules would also guarantee that money would not leave the treasury for purposes not budgeted while regulatory reforms from the Independent National Electoral Commission could guarantee greater obedience to the rules. The choice facing the nation is obvious. We either reform our political finance procedures or stagnate.
