INEC goes tough on political parties’ candidates over campaign funds

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is going tough with political parties and their candidates in next year’s elections on how they source and disburse their campaign funds.

Speaking in Abuja during a policy roundtable conference on political campaign finance organised by The Electoral Forum (TEF), INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu disclosed that the commission plans to work with the Central Bank of Nigeria, Department of State Services (DSS), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and commercial banks to carry out the task.

Yakubu, who was represented at the policy roundtable conference by the National Commissioner and chairman (Committee on Party Monitoring), Prof. Kunle Ajayi, said the commission was determined to track and ascertain campaign expenditure by politicians before and during the elections.

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He said the commercial banks would be required to report all suspicious transactions ahead of the elections, of which failure to report any such suspicious transactions would attract prosecution.

“Every candidate must be made to declare his bank asset; that is where they draw out their money. So we will make them present their statements of account right from the onset.

“We will make it mandatory for them to turn in their bank statement so that if they say they are doing billboards and the account remains the same, then there is a problem.”

The commission also plans to check vote buying, according to Yakubu, who said: “We are going to establish finance monitoring teams and they will be among the electorate but they (politicians and political parties) won’t know.

“We are going to do it in a way that the influence of money will be reduced, because we want to make the electoral field a level playing ground for both rich and poor candidates and the electorate.

His immediate predecessor, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who contributed from abroad, described lack of accountability and transparency in political campaign financing as key factors responsible for some challenges facing Nigeria’s electoral system.

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His words: “If we insist on accountability, then you can begin to somehow sanitise the way political parties raise funds. I think what has happened is that we paid too much attention to the issue of electronic transmission of results, and somehow they quickly passed the Sections about raising the threshold. The civil societies did not pay much attention in their advocacy against this particular issue.

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Also speaking, the National Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council, Yabagi Sani, represented by its National Treasurer, Mr.Obidike Okolo, called for a strict enforcement of the regulations on election funding with a view to preventing the monetisation of the electoral process and improving the level of trust between the electorate and candidates.

He said while the controversial Electoral Act Amendment Bill (2020), if assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, would raise the ceiling of what a presidential candidate can spend on elections from N1 billion to N5 billion, representing a 400 per cent increment amongst others, there was need for its enforcement to ensure compliance with the provisions of the law on political campaign finance.

The TEF is a multidisciplinary strategic think-tank aimed at strengthening electoral governance and accountability in Nigeria through the provision of data, critical and contextualized analysis and solutions to improve the credibility and integrity of the electoral process.