The problem is hinged on blatant violation of electoral campaign finance laws. Section 91 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) states that the “maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be one billion naira (N1,000,000,000)” while 91 (9) follows that “No individual or other entity shall donate more than one million naira (N1,000,000) to any candidate.”
President Muhammadu Buhari deserves commendation for his new
year pledge to reform Nigeria’s electoral process, but he should have gone
further to admit that the exercise through, which he was re-elected for a
second term in office was grossly flawed. He should have equally confessed
that, by law, the degree of irregularity in the 2019 presidential election
ought to have landed both himself (Buhari) and his main opponent, former
Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, in prison.
The problem is hinged on blatant violation of electoral
campaign finance laws. Section 91 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended)
states that the “maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a
presidential election shall be one billion naira (N1,000,000,000)” while 91 (9)
follows that “No individual or other entity shall donate more than one million
naira (N1,000,000) to any candidate.” Section 124 is specific with bribery, yet
different shades of world currencies, beguiling gifts and honorariums, and
other eccentric monetary rewards defined 2019 presidential election campaigns.
It does not take a Rotimi Williams to prove that Buhari and
Atiku were in clear breach of the aforementioned sections. These, of course,
should have culminated to multiple convictions of “imprisonment for 12 months”
as stipulated in the Electoral Act.
An apparent paradox however, is that even if Buhari and
Atiku were to be barred and jailed in the process, lack of funding ostensibly
made it impossible for any of the minor candidates to garner enough votes or
the electoral spread to claim outright victory or to even explore a second
round of the election as required by the law.
The problem with campaign finance had remained unspoken
because it is as banal as Nigeria’s endemic corruption. This goes without
saying that flouting campaign finance laws did not start in 2019 with Muhammadu
Buhari and Atiku Abubakar. In short, most major party candidates since the 1999
transitional elections from councillor to the presidency, including Olusegun
Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan, were as guilty or even worse.
This explains why Attahiru Jega, erstwhile chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, had to confess that even though the
Electoral Act empowers the commission to monitor sources and nature of funding,
the “INEC does not even have a desk that handles campaign financing.” Jega
remarked that significant improvement had been made since he came on board but
also prayed that future leadership should focus on strengthening internal party
democracy and campaign money.
Unfortunately however, the trajectory of electoral progress
stalled under President Buhari. Of course, his latest promise to reform the
system remains welcome but such vow is far from novel. After all, not long
after assuming democratic power, the president proclaimed in 2016 an eagerness
to reform the same electoral laws. But he did just the opposite. Any objective
book on 2019 elections is bound to chronicle how Buhari backpedalled the wheel
of Nigeria’s democratic journey by refusing to sign into law new reforms to the
Electoral Act, including campaign finance.
To that end, even the widely celebrated “Not Too Young To
Run bill” signed into law to reduce the age limit for standing electoral office
in the country, became an exercise in futility. Apart from the children of the
rich, who benefited from the bill during the 2019 electoral cycle; the very
masses including the ordinary youth, had no chance as money determined who
vied, who won, and who lost the elections.
The need to curb illegal money in Nigeria’s election campaign
cannot be overstated, especially considering that the problem is central to
elitist corruption. Therefore, as a president whose sole claim to power was to
fight corruption, Buhari can still seize the moment and go forth to lay a
strong foundation for clean money in Nigerian democracy, with special attention
to serious consequences for violation of electoral laws.
A tenable way forward is sincerity of purpose. Buhari can
borrow from the examples of Presidents Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Not only did Yar’Adua
acknowledge that the process that brought him to power was tainted, he also did
something about the problem, leading to an impartial INEC Chairman and the 2010
Electoral Act that followed. Jonathan went further to ensure the free and fair
elections of 2015 that made it possible for the gladsome history in which a
Nigerian opposition candidate defeated an incumbent president, even though he
would become the sacrificial lamb.
Where art thou, President Buhari?
Now is an opportunity to equally bequeath a memorable legacy
by occasioning a revolutionary change. As I had promoted in the past, given
that illegal campaign money in the country is explicitly or implicitly looted
from the public treasury, Nigeria might as well adopt full public funding for
inter-party elections. This proposal is well studied. It profoundly promotes
the vitally essential competition component of democracy. It is consistent with
the recommendations put forth by renowned organisations, such as the
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the
International Foundation for Electoral Systems. The proposal also mirrors the
McCain-Feingold legislation in the United States of America—without the choice
for individual contributions.
SKC Ogbonnia, a 2019 APC presidential aspirant, is the
author of the Effective Leadership Formula
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