When the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, for assistance to monitor and track campaign funds spent by political parties and their candidates, it was an admission of inherent difficulties in carrying out this statutory duty.
Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu told his anti-graft agency counterpart, Ibrahim Magu, when he visited the commission: “We want the EFCC which has the mandate and capacity to track and trace the sources of funds to work closely with us so that we can trace within the limits of the law”.
He said cooperation would enable the commission enforce the provisions of the Electoral Act on electioneering campaign funding and ensure that election results are not determined by the amount of money a political party or candidate spends at the polls. Yakubu was apparently piqued by the practice whereby parties and their candidates go to the polling stations with sacks of money to induce voters even as he lamented that it compromised the rights of the people to vote freely for candidates of their choice.
INEC is statutorily empowered to monitor all sources of funds of political parties. Specifically, sections 225 and 226 of the 1999 constitution assert the powers of INEC to monitor and assess parties’ sources of funding and management of same.
They comprehensively deal with regulations to be enforced by the electoral body to make the political parties regularly financially accountable to it. Section 225(2) requires that all political parties shall “submit to the Independent National Electoral Commission a detailed annual statement and analysis of its sources of funds and other assets together with a similar statement of its expenditure in such form as the commission may require”.
The 2010 Electoral Act went further to clear any ambiguity arising from monitoring of parties’ campaign funds by setting a ceiling of expenditure for political parties and their candidates for specific offices. The maximum for a presidential candidate is pegged at N1 billion, N200 million for governorship candidate and N40 million for the senate. The House of Representatives and state house of assembly are set at N20 million and N10 million respectively.
Despite the wide powers of INEC to monitor and bring to book political parties and individuals that run fowl of extant regulations on campaign funding, the commission has been severely handicapped in this regard. Not only has it been unable to monitor and track electioneering campaign expenses of political parties and their candidates, it has not made much progress in monitoring and prosecuting the numerous electoral offences that have been a sad feature of our elections.
It is the apparent difficulty in tracing and tracking electioneering campaign funds that compelled INEC to seek other ways to it. Having admitted this handicap, it seeks cooperation of the anti-graft agency which has unlimited technology for monitoring and tracking the movement of funds. This would seem a new resolve and determination to overcome some of the limitations the electoral body encounters in compelling political parties and their candidates stick to extant regulations on campaign funding.
The amount of funds political parties and their candidates spend during elections have remained vexatious. Even as the Electoral Act sets limits on campaign expenses, facts on the ground indicate that they are largely observed in their breach. The quantum of money that exchange hands during elections both on the side of the political parties and their candidates makes a mockery of the limits set by the Act.
Not only has money assumed a prime role in swaying the direction of elections, it has prevented very credible and well qualified people without huge financial war chest from making themselves available for political leadership recruitment. This has impacted very negatively on the quality of leadership on these shores with deleterious consequences on the overall progress and development of the country.
Elections have virtually turned into a market place where politicians and the electorate trade on votes with the highest bidder almost always having his way. And with a high level of illiteracy and poverty, the cankerworm has assumed a very pervasive dimension.
It is good a thing INEC has sufficiently been agitated by the negative effects of the wrong deployment of money to sway the direction of elections. Money has come to play such pre-eminent role in our political process that the erroneous impression is being conveyed that democracy is for sale. Not only are politicians ever ready to compromise the electorate, the voters themselves have over time shown a very destructive appetite to trade their votes for a mess of porridge.
This has had the net effect of not only compromising the sanctity of free, fair and credible elections but the rights of the people to elect their leaders without let or hindrance. Excessive deployment of money obfuscates the principles of representative democracy by infringing on the sovereignty of the electorate as freely expressed at the ballot box. It is nigh impossible for a virile culture of democracy which is a sine qua non for political development to grow and endure under such circumstance.
Besides, the increasing role of money in determining the direction of electoral victory is inexorably linked to the high incidence of corruption in public places. Those who buy their ways to elective offices, see elections as investments from which they have to recoup with high profit margin. That is why such public offices have easily become the quickest means of wealth acquisition. Little wonder politics has turned into a very profitable business attracting all and sundry including impressionable youths that are deployed to risky and life threatening assignments.
A new dimension to this is evident in the phenomenon of vote buying during elections. Though this is not entirely new, it seemed to have assumed very worrisome dimension during the last two governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states. Politicians were seen openly with sacks of money buying votes. The ability to pay for votes played a prime role in swaying the direction of those elections.
What unscrupulous politicians required before parting with their illicit money was evidence of having voted for their party. It was partly to check this practice that INEC barred voters from using mobile phones as soon as they were handed over ballot papers. The calculation of INEC was that it will prevent voters from capturing their ballot papers on their phones with the aim of convincing agents of the politicians as to which party they voted for. Without such evidence, INEC believes vote buying will be reduced. But it cannot be entirely eliminated by that measure as there exist other ways of inducing voters albeit, monetarily.
The important thing is that INEC has shown some commitment to checking the influence of money during elections. It is good that it is partnering with the EFCC which has comparative advantage in monitoring and tracking sources of funds. The synergy of this partnership will be of immense aid to the electoral body in tracking funds deployed by politicians and their parties during elections. Even then, it lacks the capacity and resources to prosecute election offenders.
The role of EFCC is vital given that political parties and candidates source for funds during elections through known and unknown means. Much of the funds for which former National Security Adviser to former President Jonathan, Sambo Dasuki is facing trial were security votes allegedly diverted for the prosecution of the 2015 elections. INEC lacks the capacity to unveil such monies and others that may accrue from diversion of funds and illegal contracts.
In carrying out this assignment, the two agencies must be fair to all political parties and their candidates. They must rise beyond partisanship and any shred of partiality if something positive is to come out of this partnership. They must resist the temptation of viewing corruption as a malfeasance only associated with the opposition. Since governments in power are heaviest spenders during elections, we look forward to seeing the agencies expose illegal deployments or diversion of public funds from this quarter. That will be a real measure of the success of the new understanding.