ELECTION OF PRESIDENT, OTHERS TO COST N15NB - REPORT

Parties raked in N14bn from presidential, govs aspirants alone on forms
The presidential system doesn’t come cheap, even in advanced democracies like the United States of America and Great Britain. For instance, in the 2012 US presidential election, parties, candidates and other organisations put up about $7 billion.
The bill rose because it was the first presidential vote, following the Supreme Court‘s ruling that granted corporations freedom of political speech.
Reports showed that the 2012 election set the record for the most expensive campaign in history. Political parties mostly, but not only, the Democrats and Republicans, ended up spending $2 billion, while political committees accounted for $2.1 billion. Candidate campaigns spent about $3.2 billion.
Chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Ellen Weintraub, who revealed these figures, said because of the massive cash flow, FEC had 11 million pages of campaign funding-related documents to process in 2012 alone.
According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, which published the figures, $3.7 billion was spent in the 2014 midterm elections and it equally estimated that the 2016 presidential election will eclipse that amount and might even double it.
The report further revealed that the $3.7 billion spent on the 2014 election came from sundry sources. The centre said just 666,773 individuals had donated more than $200 to campaigns, parties and political action committees in the 2014 election cycle. The number of contributors represented .2 percent which is just a fraction of the 316 million population of the US, Bruce Mehlman’s post-election chart disclosed.
In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama’s campaign team raised nearly $750 million and generated more than $1 billion in the subsequent election in 2012.
Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, raised $239 million from donors and received $84 million from public funds, according to a CNN report. The report compared previous spendings with the 2012 exercise and concluded that there was an astronomical rise in the amount of funds committed into political campaigns by parties and individuals.
The Federal Elections Commission has provided a breakdown of presidential campaigns receipts (in millions of dollars) going back to the 1996 presidential race, that shows how campaign fundraising and spending has multiplied in a short time:
2004
George W. Bush: $269.6
John Kerry: $234.6
2000
Bush: $95.5
Al Gore: $48.1
1996
Bill Clinton: $42.5
Bob Dole: $44.9
In Britain, the story is not different. Though election in the United Kingdom is not as expensive as the US, it still doesn’t come cheap. Trust the Brits, who are very conservative, they have opted to regulate election funds.
In Britain, a law known as the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 regulates campaign spending, anything from party political broadcasts, advertising, rallies and even “issuing disparaging material relating to another party or its candidates,” according to the government’s website, it is computed as campaign spending. Of course, such party or individual is taxed accordingly.
Four years ago, the parties and their candidates were regulated by time frames: The ‘long campaign’ -- from January 1 to April 12 when parliament was dissolved and the ‘short campaign’ from the dissolution of parliament through election day. According to the website, the long campaign has a limit of 25,000 pounds (about $39,000) and 7,150 pounds (about $11,200) for the short campaign.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that money drives campaigns. Available funds from persons contesting for elective positions and their respective parties allow campaigns to get ahead in the media war on television, radio, online, in the mail, bill boards-outdoor advertising, handbills and on-the-ground grassroots outreach.
In these climes, the government hardly commits a dime into the campaigns of individuals nor are parties paid ‘stipends’ by the state in whatever guise to support and strengthen democratic institutions as is the case in Nigeria.
Research conducted by the Conservative Home website suggests that the cost of securing a parliamentary seat is £34,400, where the elected lawmaker will earn £67,060 salary annually, which is three times the national average wage.
Speaking from experience, Mark Simmonds, a former Foreign Office minister who, because his £89,435 ministerial salary annually was not enough to meet expenses, explained that even wooing a constituency association to be chosen as a candidate carries considerable costs: one Labour candidate spent £5,000 just to get to this starting block.
In Nigeria, for instance, the actual cost of campaigns either by an individual contestant or a political party is hard to estimate. Unlike in Britain and the United States, where there are specific laws that compel individual contestants and parties to declare every campaign donation and these laws are strictly adhered to and defaulters severely punished, the Nigerian situation is different.
No, not in terms of availability of necessary laws to regulate election expenses but the political will to enforce such rules. Also, ownership structure of political parties are not organised in the same pattern. Even where there are donors, they are hardly documented to make monitoring and computation by relevant authorities possible.
Transparency in the amount donated, who donated what? The categories of donors are actually not known. The party is usually run by the so-called ‘money bags’ who see the party as their private estates and who conduct business in whatever ways that tickle their fancy. This includes imposing candidates with little or no input from the majority of the party members, who despite being card-carrying members, have no financial influence and are inconsequential in the decision-making process.
And even where the grassroots party members are willing and ready to make their financial contributions, they are seldom allowed to participate in the process. Party ownership is designed to exclude the masses and make the niche of dubious politicians, who price them out of the ownership race.
Little wonder, many say politics is monetised in Nigeria and also structured to ensure that other than those who have made their hands dirty, very few people can afford to purchase the expression of interest and nomination forms.
And it is not about a political party as all the parties are culprits. The cost of buying these forms is prohibitive because majority of those that would have been interested in contesting for elective offices are schemed out in a skewed process. Some say this is a macabre dance, a twisted process that advances a culture of deceit and which regrettably keeps out the poor, but perhaps more qualified candidates. It allows the moneybags and godfathers to dominate the political sphere for their selfish interest.
Human rights activist and lawyer, Femi Falana, while delivering a paper entitled ‘Current Security Challenges: Implication for the 2015 Elections’ wondered that if contestants had to take bank loans to purchase expression of interest and nomination forms, how will such aspirant be able to bankroll his electioneering campaign?
He was specifically reacting to General Muhammadu Buhari’s complaint that the N27.5 million cost of purchasing the forms was exorbitant. He condemned the resort to bank loans to purchase forms for elections, stressing that it was unexpected and not defendable.
Falana concluded that the imposition of a prohibitive cost to purchase a form is a clear commercialisation of politics in Nigeria, as well as a way of preventing persons who are not affluent from throwing their hats into the ring for the 2015 general elections.
Buhari had decried the exorbitant fees for the forms, noting thus: “It is a pity I couldn’t influence this amount to be put down as in the case of ladies and the disabled that intend to participate. I looked left and right in our meetings but I could not read sympathy, so I kept my mouth shut.
“But I felt heavily sorry for myself because I don’t want to go and ask somebody to pay for my nomination forms, because I always try to pay myself, at least for the nomination. N27 million is a big sum, thankfully I have a personal relationship with the manager of my bank in Kaduna and early this morning, I put an early call (and) I told him that very soon the forms are coming, so, whether I am on red, or green or even black please honour it, otherwise I may lose the nomination.
“I was about to go to Kaduna this morning and I told the Chairman (Odigie-Oyegun) but he said in that case, you better pick your form and keep a straight face. That means there is no excuse,” Buhari said.
Falana couldn’t help but wonder that if the purchase of the forms proved a herculean task for Buhari, a former Head of State, how easy would it be for those without Buhari’s clout, businesses and deep pocket to buy forms and much more fund an expensive campaign?
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, was quick to adduce reasons for the almost out-of-reach cost of purchasing the forms. “The N27.5 million was carefully chosen to “separate men from the boys.” It is quite clear. We know you. I don’t expect you to have N27 million under your bed. But I expected that there are Nigerians who will vouch for you anyday and who are ready to stand for you anyday and that is the result that we have obtained today,” he said.
But the APC is not the only political party with a prohibitive fee for forms for presidential aspirants and would-be elective officers. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is equally a culprit.
The ruling party has imposed no less an exorbitant fee on aspirants for elective offices. The PDP’s fee for the expression of interest and nomination form for the presidential ticket is N5 million less than what it costs to obtain similar forms from the APC.
Although the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has resolved not to field a presidential candidate in the 2015 election, nonetheless, it has imposed a heavy fee on aspirants for the gubernatorial, senatorial and House of Representatives tickets under its platform. In fact, even the House of Assembly and councillorship aspirants are not spared. APGA’s amount for the purchase of expression of interest and nomination form for governorship is N20 million.
Labour Party, Unity Party of Nigeria, Social Democratic Party and other smaller parties have fared no better in the cost of expression of interest and nomination forms for aspirants on its platform.
Usman Hassan, a political analyst, said “Campaign spending has never been an issue by the regulators. Of course, there are excesses, but INEC has never enforced the law on outrageous spending, so it has continued unabated. I don’t foresee a change because we have had a situation where the regulators either turned a blind eye or at best made peripheral statements purportedly aimed at checkmating corrupt campaign acts, but without punishing the offenders.’’
Hassan is absolutely right, the Electoral Act empowers INEC to track campaign spending and punish defaulters. The electoral regulators are fully aware of its responsibilities but whether it has been alive to it or not is a different matter all together.
Interestingly, Section 91 of the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended, stipulates that maximum expenses to be incurred by any candidate at a presidential election shall be N1 billion, while the amount for governorship is N200 million.
The Act equally placed a campaign ceiling of N40 million and N20 million for candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives respectively. Also, N10 million is the fixed sum for election expenses for the state assembly and N3.5 million for council chairmanship elections.
To ensure compliance, sanctions for candidates who deliberately breached these campaign spending limits are as follows: for presidential election it is N1 million or 12 months imprisonment or both. For a governor it is N800,000 or nine months inprisonment or both. N600,000 or imprisonment for six months would be slammed on a senatorial candidate, while N500,000 or five months imprisonment is the penalty for a House of Representatives candidate.
However, INEC itself has observed this act in the breach. It has never hauled in anyone or a political party for violating the provisions on campaign spending let alone enforce the stipulated punitive measures on violators.
INEC’s powers to monitor campaign spending, audit the accounts of political parties and publish findings are drawn from Section 153 of the Constitution, as well as Part 1 of the Third Schedule. The provisions though were not meant to hinder individuals and political parties alike from raising funds instead, it was a restraint against the reckless generation of money from all sorts of means to fund their campaigns.
As stated earlier, election campaigns don’t come cheap. Moving from place to place to campaign takes money and in this electronic age placing advertorials on the radio and television costs a fortune, billboards and handbills cost a considerable sum to produce and distribute. Besides, there are other logistics including transportation, lodging and feeding in hotels and other incidental expenses peculiar to the Nigerian society like doling out stipends to supporters and other ‘volunteers’. Of course, the culture of ‘stomach infrastructure’ constitutes another avenue where individual contestants must make provisions for.
To help generate campaign funds, parties and individuals set up fundraising committees as is the case in the US, but the difference is that whereas in the USA the funds comes in trickles from sundry quarters, as well as from deep pocket donors, all of whom are listed, the Nigerian situation is a different ball game. Aspirants are to raise the money themselves from whatever means with the support of a negligible number of loyalists. In fact, aspirants are expected to fund the party and even pay for the services of party executives.
Abdullahi Kurfi believes that this is the reason why elected officers, especially governors, are so powerful because they can deploy state resources into personal campaigns. “You see, governors are powerful in Nigeria because they control state funds and can make same available for party campaigns. The desperation to unseat an elected officer whenever election draws near is due to the desire to control the state albeit for selfish campaign purposes,” the Katsina businessman said.
Interestingly, there is a clamour for INEC to reverse its action on giving funds to political parties.
Attahiru Jega, INEC boss, is upbeat that the commission has what it takes to monitor campaign spending and where necessary, punish offenders. The commission’s spokesman, Kayode Idowu, said recently that “The commission has put structures in place to track expenditure. That structure did not exist in 2011 and we could not do much in that regard. Now we have been able to put structures in place to track expenditure and we are going to be doing that. We have a department that tracks such expenditure and it isis functional. The capacity is there.”
However, Idowu said the commission can only know when a stipulated amount fixed for campaign spending has been exceeded after the elections have been concluded.
“The situation now is that we can only know whether a person has over spent until he or she has spent it. You cannot stop people from spending until the person has spent. What the law anticipates is that we have put a ceiling on spending and we will now monitor to know whether we can make a case about it.
“INEC can only work within the framework of the law. You are absolutely right that INEC does not have the capacity to handle the magnitude of electoral offenses. That is given and we have said it countless times. That is why we have always called for election tribunal. But if the law says INEC should do something even within its constraints, INEC will do what is possible.
“INEC will do what it has to do within the framework of the law as it exists at the present. For instance, the law says we should publish the audited yearly accounts of political parties and that is what we have always done. We audit and publish that is what the law says we should do. So, after we publish what next? There are places where you have offenses and you don’t have sanctions stated,” stressing that the law will work only when individual contestants and the parties resolve to play by the rules and be disciplined.
Nonetheless, he said INEC will endeavour to enforce compliance using the means at its disposal. “As many ways as possible, we will monitor campaign spending by relying on adverts placed in the newspapers and the cost of each billboards, etc. They will add up all the expenses made and come up with the outcome.”
However, sums deriveed from these may just be a drop in the ocean. Parties and individuals spend much more than what they deploy into electronic advertising. Money changes hands almost every minute in different places and that will continue for months.
Perhaps, a glance at what parties raked in from sales of expression of interest and nomination forms in some states will give an idea of what it will cost for an aspirant to emerge whether as president, governor, senator, House of Representatives member, state assembly member and even a councillor.
Imo
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will rake in more than N400 million from gubernatorial aspirants in Imo State, where it has at least 26 aspirants. The 26 governorship aspirants will each spend N11 million for the nomination and expression-of-interest forms alone; another N1.65 million (being 15 percent of total forms money) to the zonal office and a similar sum (N1.65 million) for the state office. This brings the total to N12.65 million by each gubernatorial aspirant.
The PDP would make an additional N300 million from aspirants to the Senate, House of Representatives and the state House of Assembly, where over 100 people have lined up to contest.
Anambra
APGA generated more than N163 million from the sale of expression of interest and nomination forms to aspirants in the November 16, 2013 governorship election. The amount came from 14 aspirants who collected the expression of interest form that cost N2 million and nomination form at N10 million for men and N5 million for women.
Oyo
12 gubernatorial aspirants each paid N16 million for the expression of interest and nomination forms. The breakdown shows that N11 million and another N5 million went to both the national headquarters and state branch, respectively.
A senatorial aspirant pays N2.5 million, House of Representatives and House of Assembly pay N1 million and N250, 000 respectively.
Rivers and Delta
The PDP generated about N.6 billion from governorship aspirants in the oil-rich Delta and Rivers States from sales of forms for the 2015 governorship elections, where 30 and 25 aspirants are jostling for the job.
From the 55 governorship aspirants in both states, the party raked in N550 million for nomination forms alone and another N55 million from expression of interest forms. This brings the total to N605 million.
Adamawa
APC’s rate is N5.5 million for governorship, N3.3 million for senatorial, N2.2million for Representatives, state assembly N550, 000 respectively. The PDP has N11 million for guber aspirants, N4.5 million, N2.5 million and N1.5 million respectively for those aspiring for Senate, House of Reps and state assembly.
Benue
An aspirant for the Benue State House of Assembly must cough out N600,000 for the expression of interest and nomination forms.
From the high cost of nomination forms, it is obvious there no ideological difference between the APC and the ruling PDP.
Whereas the APC has a flat rate for presidential and gubernatorial aspirants, the rate for PDP aspirants varies. However, taken on an average that each party sold 15 forms at N12.5 million for gubernatorial aspirants, times 36 states it amounts to N13.5 billion.
Also, the APC alone raked in N1.375 billion from the five presidential aspirants who paid N27.5 million each, while the PDP made N22 million being cost for President Goodluck Jonathan’s form all amounting to N1.397 billion. Add this to the N13.5 billion, it means the major parties grossed in about N15 billion from sales of forms alone.
A chapter chairman of one of the political parties said the average cost of electing a councillor in the FCT for instance is N2 million, for a House of Representatives one would need at least N2 million weekly and thus N8 million per month, a senator must spend N3.5 million weekly amounting to N14 million monthly, while a governorship aspirant whose budget is on the low needs N5 million every week and N20 million a month to cater for his campaigns,” he said, noting that it is a mild estimate.
“To elect a governor in any state the least amount an aspirant needs to fund his campaign is about N25 million, an amount that is inclusive of publicity, hand bills and posters each month.
“Now taken that a governorship aspirant runs his campaign for four months he thus will spend about N100 million to get elected say in a state like Nasarawa which has the least population, while that will be considered a peanut in places like Lagos, Kano, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Delta, Imo, Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto, Benue, Adamawa and Taraba, where a candidate will need between N350 million to N500million to emerge governor,” a former governor revealed.
Olu Adedayo, a political analyst, sums up the statistics thus, “if the figures above are aggregated, it means on an average a presidential aspirant must spend a minimum of N2 billion to get to Aso Villa.
“Again, if a governorship candidate spends averagely N400 million to get elected, then to elect 36 state governors, the nation must have committed nothing less than N12.4 billion, all of which excluded amounts for senators and members of the House of Representatives.” He noted that it is the main reason why elected officials often turn their backs on the electorate.
“If you are like General Buhari who took a loan to buy his form, perhaps another loan to fund campaigns, if you are elected what would be your priority? Of course to service your loan, then patronise those that in some ways supported you financially (these set of people can be very greedy) before you think of service to the people,” a former chairmanship aspirant in the FCT said.