Is N5bn ceiling for election expenses for presidential aspirants appropriate?

• Mr Isa Manzuma (A former Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Ilorin Branch

This debate on the limitation on election expenses by presidential candidates is quite relevant in view of the forthcoming 2019 election.

The discussion of this issue must take cognisance of the provisions of the Electoral Act as amended.

Section 91 (1) of the Electoral Act provides that election expenses shall not exceed the sum stipulated in subsection (2) – (7) of this section. Sub-section (2) provides that the maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1bn.This I think has now been reviewed to N5bn.

Whatever the stipulated new ceiling on election expenses at all levels of elections is, the question is, does the Independent National Electoral Commission have the facility, capacity in terms of equipment and manpower, to adequately monitor and enforce the law?

The recent experience with the Osun governorship election and the presidential primary of the Peoples Democratic Party held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, are pointers to what we should expect in 2019 elections.

Section 92 of the Electoral Act provides that election expenses means the expenses incurred by a political party within the period from the date of notice given by the commission to  conduct an election up to and including, the polling day in respect of the particular election.

In my humble opinion, the entire process from conduct of primaries to the election is one. Experience has shown that the limits are never complied with and no candidate or party has been sanctioned.

• Lekan Oketokun (Peace and conflict resolution expert)

Presidential election anywhere in the world is a very expensive project for the candidates and political parties involved.

Ordinarily, one would have said that N5bn should be enough as expenses for the election. However, in Nigeria, it would be naive of me to say that the amount is enough given the excessive level of monetisation and vote buying that has characterised our politics in Nigeria.

In any case, how do you determine who is spending what in an election such as the presidential election?

The truth of the matter is that it is not only going to be difficult to ascertain who has spent more than the N5bn ceiling, it is also going to be difficult to determine the various channels through which the funding of the election is coming from.

While it may seem appropriate to regulate election expenses for the various positions, it is not very wise to come up with decisions and policies that are not enforceable or binding on candidates and political parties in respect of expenses.

• Mr Adetokunbo Mumuni (Director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project)

The N5bn and N1bn electoral expenses ceiling set by the National Assembly for the presidential and governorship candidates is not only exorbitant, it is also inappropriate. It can lead to further commercialisation of our electoral process. I don’t understand the rationale behind allowing a presidential candidate to spend up to N5bn in an election. The truth of the matter is that our electoral process is too commercialised.

How do you expect someone who really wants to serve his country to have N5bn to expend? I believe that these expenses should not be an issue for now. The issues at stake are what our lawmakers and people in the executive will do during and after the electoral process to serve the Nigerian people.

• Dr Yunusa Tanko (Presidential candidate, National Conscience Party)

The N5bn peg is too much. The question Nigerians must begin to ask is, where does a candidate even get that amount of money from? That should put a big question mark on the candidate himself. The other question to ask is; does the Independent National Electoral Commission have the capacity to monitor the spending? How does INEC find out if a candidate spent below or above that threshold?

There is no mechanism in place to monitor this. Over the years, there are political parties who enjoy a lot of goodwill and even spend huge sums of money but never get to win the elections. We also have to ask, what are the penalties for those found to have spent up to N5bn and how enforceable are these punishments?

We should not continue to deceive ourselves by making laws that we have no intention to implement. Let me even ask, are we saying a person who spends that amount of money should be given an opportunity to serve; or is it an investment wherein the person is expected to recoup?

We should not begin to give an impression that our political system is up for sale to the highest bidder. Politics should be about service; those who have the capacity to serve may not necessarily have a huge amount of money.

• Mr Debo Adeniran (Director, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership)

This amount is outrageous. Ordinarily, we think that N1bn could have been too much for a presidential candidate. If modest campaigns are being targeted and there is no vote buying or converting people through financial inducements, there is no need for outrageous expenses.

Those who are making these laws are those who have made it from the monetisation of the process.

That is why instead of reviewing it downwards, they want to increase it. That is the tragedy that has befallen our political life in Nigeria.

Politics must not be so monetised for us to get the best of our people who genuinely want to serve. We must begin to see politics as a vehicle to serve, not an investment where the investor, in this case the politician, looks for opportunities to recoup his investment as soon as he gets into office.

• Chief Chekwas Okorie (National Chairman, United Peoples Party)

If you want to be realistic, even that N5bn is a drop in the ocean because running an election is a very expensive venture.  I can tell you that there are parties who have budget of close to N50bn, not N5bn.

Let me ask, how much is the cost of printing posters alone? How do you pay your agents, what about the cost of hiring private jets to meet campaign appointments and other engagements? The N5bn is an improvement on what it used to be, but the problem has always been how can this be monitored?

Even when the amount approved was much lower than this, it was not monitored; it was just a bazaar by everybody involved. How do you begin to monitor the expenditure of a presidential candidate who is campaigning with a chartered jet or an official presidential jet? If you look at this and the cost of printing ordinary posters, it will exceed that amount. It is not easy to enforce; it is just good on paper.

There are those who cannot afford a tenth of this amount but are still running. If you want to win a presidential election in Nigeria, N5bn is peanuts; it’s just like a drop of water in an ocean.

Elections are very expensive. On election day where you are supposed to have an agent in each polling unit, even if you are to pay each one of them N1,000 per day as allowance, multiply that by 150,000 polling units and you  begin to see what I mean.

This is even what you will consider last minute expenditure. You would have spent money on billboards, posters, T-shirts, caps, banners, radio, television and newspaper adverts and other related expenses.

How much is 30 minutes programming on radio and television or a coloured page political advertorial in the newspapers and how many newspapers are you to patronise? This is the reality of our situation.