SATIRE SATURDAY — A fundamental aspect of Nigeria’s party politics and, by extension, her democratic culture that we seem less concerned about is the funding mechanism put in place by political parties to finance party activities and promote their candidates.
With our politics and party administration system largely shrouded in needless opacity, there are too many unanswered questions surrounding how parties and candidates are funded in this clime––most especially during election years.
To my mind, a conscious attempt at dissecting this phenomenon may lead us to one of the major challenges being faced by a few well-meaning public officers in their resolve to engender societal development via pro-people policies and programmes, particularly in the face of influences from shadowy moneybags and other appendages of power.
In the last few months, two major developments have surfaced in the media that prompted this enquiry: exclusive reports by PREMIUM TIMES on the funding of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
On June 9, the APC’s financial report obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES showed that in spite of the huge resources that went into the 2015 electioneering, the then-candidate and later president Muhammadu Buhari, Yemi Osinbajo, Bola Tinubu and other party bigwigs never paid their levies in all of that year.
The party in its report said it received no such contribution from all its members across the country, despite the bloated material resources expended on campaign activities across the country––especially after the election was postponed in February of that year!
Earlier, the paper had reported on April 27 that 24 governors on the platform of the APC were mandated to contribute N6 billion at N250 million each towards the party’s congresses and national convention. The governors listed include all but one of the many Nigerian governors struggling to pay salaries in their states.
In a rejoinder, the APC pushed back by claiming that the report was defective because the governors may be owing as much as N250 million, adding that not all of the governors would be paying that huge. If there was anything the rejoinder did, it was to raise more suspicion about how the party actually funds its activities.
In the United States, a core aspect of electioneering the media focus on is how parties and their candidates are funded. In fact, the US federal election law requires all candidates to report each campaign donation to the Federal Election Committee (FEC). The fillings help regulate and monitor the role of money in electoral affairs. In Nigeria, there is a similar arrangement on paper but as it is with everything Nigerian, they are barely applied in real life situations.
Since it came to power, the Buhari government has done fairly well with its anti-corruption war, warts and all. And some of the major revelations have been the mega corruption that characterised the PDP 2015 election funding activities, now dubbed “Dasuki-gate”. Ideally, however, if there is one reasonable ground to disagree with the government on its anti-graft campaign, it is its resolve to look the other way when accusations of similar PDP-esque heist get thrown at some of the backbones of this government, with regard to its own 2015 campaign funding.
And that throws up that haunting, somewhat rhetorical question: Who actually funded President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign in 2015––in the light of the revelations thus far, even from the APC?
Of course, what this exemplifies is that a politician, irrespective of his perceived anti-graft credential, would remain a politician. Having contested three times without success, Mr Buhari probably succumbed to the reality by riding on the backs of those he, based on his public persona, wouldn’t have ‘ideally’ dealt with. But the ideal is just what it is: the ideal; it is far away from the reality. And this unsettling reality is, perhaps, where the answer to the title of this piece lies. Interestingly, it may also be the source of the numerous disappointments Nigerians have harvested since this government –which a vast majority of the people genuinely invested hope in – came into power.
SATIRE SATURDAY expects that the Nigerian people would show interest in how parties and candidates are funded because it may ultimately determine whether they would eventually get the dividends of democracy they deserve, anyway.
More importantly, as we approach 2019, one would expect that the people would now show more interest in parties with clearly spelt out funding mechanisms and, of course, realise that the famed ‘body language’ does not fund elections––just as it doesn’t deliver good governance.
Source
Premium Times
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