Electoral Laws and Monitoring of Campaign Financing during the 2015 Presidential Election in Nigeria

Abstract

The emergence of politicians with overwhelming financial muscle in Nigeria since 1990s has complicated the relationship between money and politics in the country. This has been intensified by lack of clear legislation on how political parties should seek funding for their campaigns. Although effective supervision of political parties’ finance is critical to the survival and consolidation of any democracy, the relevant electoral laws in Nigeria have not been effectively enforced. This is evident in the unbridled deployment of financial and other material resources by moneyed politicians and corporations during party campaign fundraising and electioneering. Among other things, this paper investigated the interface between the electoral laws and monitoring of campaign financing during the 2015 Presidential Election in Nigeria. The study is a documentary research and data were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive method. Utilizing the Marxist theory of the post-colonial state, the paper established that the electoral laws are generally couched ambiguously by politicians with vested interests in order to weaken the enforcement capacity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as well as facilitate the advancement of the electoral interests of the ‘political entrepreneurs’. Thus, the unbundling of the Commission is recommended as a sine qua non for effective monitoring and supervision of political parties in the country.

Has anything changed with illegitimate electoral financing and political power contestation in Nigeria?

“…The Nigerian political arena is not enamored of the influence of money in the electoral process. Money is seen as a political investment that facilitates the capture of political power and by extension, economic power (Kura, 2011;Nwangwu & Ononogbu, 2016). In the Nigerian polity, both the elite and the masses equate political power with economic power, although in different ways.…”

“…These included the mobilization of pseudo-political groups, and the creation of massive war chests with accompanying national spread in their spending patterns. Other strategies were the erection of complex networks of third-party donors; intimidation of voters, disruption of the process of collating election results using law enforcement agents, and the inundation of the polity with money through vote-buying (Ayeni, 2019;Nwangwu & Ononogbu, 2016;Nwozor et al, 2019;Nwozor & Oshewolo, 2017;Okeke & Nwali, 2020).…”

Contentious elections, political exclusion, and challenges of national integration in Nigeria

“…An equally worrisome development is the weakness of the extant institutional and administrative mechanisms (like the National Assembly, Judiciary, INEC, National Human Rights Commission, among others) for the enforcement of existing laws. This is so because politicians (lawmakers) whose conducts are meant to be regulated by these laws are the ones who design the electoral regimes (Nwangwu & Ononogbu, 2016). Lack of institutional, administrative, and financial autonomy of the INEC, therefore, has reduced the Commission into a tool for the advancement of the political interests of politicians and political entrepreneurs.…”

Sources of political parties’ campaign expenditure in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: Examining the 2015 General Election

“…Other studies such as Nwangwu and Ononogbu (2016) Aluaigba (2015), Chikodiri and Ononogbu (2016) and Sule, Azizuddin, et al (2017) have argued that there are electoral laws that specified the legal sources of political parties’ campaign expenditure, a maximum spending limit and other related laws. The INEC is mandated to monitor and sanction the defaulters but there are flaws on the part of the laws and the electoral body in monitoring closely the sources of the funds and how they are spent.…”