Victor Ade Adetula, PhD, lecturer in the department of Political Science, University of Jos, in his recent book: ‘Godfathers, Money Politics, and Electoral Violence in Nigeria’ attributed the desire of the political moneybags to retain power by all means including adapting the political mechanism to the new conditions in the political sphere as the root of their abuse of the use of money and electoral violence in Nigeria.
In recent time, political stakeholders in the country have raised concerns about the increasing monetisation of the nation’s electoral system, which has become more pronounced since the advent of democracy in the country in 1999.
This money is spent to buy nomination forms, campaign advertisement, votes, bags of rice, gifts and other items to induce voters, as well as party’s leaders and other electoral officers in a desperate attempt to emerge victorious at the different stages in the electioneering process.
Over the years, huge sums of money are often spent in the local media for campaign advertising, during months and weeks in run-off to general elections in the country.
Several pages of newspapers, selling the candidates to the masses, display the campaign images of candidates.
A report by the Vanguard indicates that about N4.5 billion was spent on political advertising about a week to the 2015 general elections; the report shows that the print media had about N1.382 billion of the advert money.
The All progressives Congress, (APC) spent N332.503 million on its presidential candidates, while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) spent N1.049 billion, which is 65.5 per cent higher than the amount spent by the APC.
Field reports further put other expenses on campaign rallies for the PDP and APC at N1.057 billion and N595.082 million respectively. Both parties also spent N224.36 million on outdoor campaigns.
The broadcast campaign spend for presidential candidates was N508.35 million and N391.05 million for the PDP and APC.
Presently the country has 68 registered political parties, but one common feature among them is their tendency to sell party nomination forms at exorbitant rates; which often discourages potential aspirants for elective positions who may have good policies and genuine intentions for the country.
In 2014 the ruling APC sold its presidential nomination forms at N25 million. The incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari said he had to secure a bank loan to be able to purchase the form; PDP presidential forms were pegged at N22 million.
Recent media reports show that Nigeria’s elections are among the most expensive in the world, with the cost soaring from a little above N1 billion in 1999 to over N100 billion in 2015.
The country’s huge cost of election was said to have surpassed that of the world’s largest democracy, India, with a population six times bigger than Nigeria.
The report shows that Nigeria, with 67 million voters spent $ 625 million during the 2015 general elections. This translates to $9.33 per vote, according to data prepared by the National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS) in 2015.
The present situation is further fueled by the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to regulate and implement the electoral law on campaign funding for political parties in the country and peg the funds that should be donated to politicians seeking elective positions in the country.
Nigeria is noted to be one of the most corrupt nations in the word, according to Transparency International, (TI) and one of the most poorly governed at all levels.
Analysts have traced the influence of money and the high cost of elections in Nigeria to bad governance and the culture of siphoning public funds in a desperate attempt by politicians to recoup their expenses and pay their god-fathers.
A national leader of the Accord party (AC) Deji Kool, noted that the monetisation of the electoral system was a disadvantage to the smaller parties in the country, stressing that INEC has failed to check the system because they were appointed by the government in power.
“Honestly, the role of money in our political system is becoming alarming. They use it to buy people’s conscience and that is why they cannot do the right thing. INEC as it presently constituted cannot do the right thing because they are under the control of money bags. They are in the hands of the parties in power. Before, they would give us money to do our things and running around, but that is not the case now, it is bad, parties should be funded”.
The chairman of Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Lagos State as well as the chairman of Inter-party Advisor Council (IPAC) Kola Ajayi, said the situation has become worrisome, stressing that it was a departure from the second and first republic.
Ajayi stressed that INEC had failed in its duties to regulate the electoral process because it was not independent and was answerable to the ruling party.
“What is happening in Nigeria is worrisome and it is a departure from the past; now, the money they are using for campaigns comes from the government coffers.
“The smaller parties cannot compete with them. There is a rule that parties should be represented in INEC, but how many parties are represented in INEC? There is no regulatory body to check campaign funding and even when it exists, it is answerable to the party in power, and until the system is sanitized, things would continue like this”.
“As a politician if you don’t have money don’t contest, because I don’t have enough money which is needed to win elections in Nigeria, I have decided to just sit and look; except you have a godfather that would sponsor you and when you get in there you have to look for a way of paying him back ”.
