Political Party Funding & Nigerians

Been a while, today’s post is inspired by talk in my home state, Rivers State. It is common to hear “Amaechi don carry Rivers State Oil Money go give APC people” in political discourse. For clarity, he officially left the PDP to the APC in November 2013.

The flaw of this argument can be found in the reply, “Had he been carrying Rivers Oil Money to the PDP for the past 6years?”

I thought this argument could do some good if genuine conversations about political party financing arise from it. This is my contribution to this conversation.

Feel free to comment as always.

Nigeria today has two main political parties, the People Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressive Congress (APC). These parties are always in the news with their promises and scepticism of the opposing party. Both parties claim to be on the side of Nigerians; however, neither has done things that are not to its benefits. This piece shows how they both benefit at the expense of Nigerians, focusing on one scenario, Political Party Funding.

HOW DO POLITICAL PARTIES FUND THEIR ACTIVITIES

The man on the street would simply say, “na our money dem dey chop”, and he is not far off. Truly, na our money dem dey chop. But how dem chop am? How our law fit stop dem?

What does the law say about political parties and funding?

For this, we refer to Chapter VI – The Executive, Part III – Supplemental, D – Political Parties of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Sorry, enough legal mumbo-jumbo. The main point of interest is Section 225, Sub-Section 3, which states:

No political party shall –

(a) Hold or possess any funds or other assets outside Nigeria; or

(b) Be entitled to retain any funds remitted or sent to it from outside Nigeria

That’s the main legal limitation political parties face, every other limitation is as defined by the legislation of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the Electoral Act. The most recent edition is the Electoral Act, 2010 [PDF] which has one Amendment [PDF].

Ways Political Parties are Funded

The basic ways political parties get funds are: member subscription fees/dues, levies on elected and appointed members, donations, nomination forms, returns on investments and fund-raising dinners. The ways we will discuss are levies, donations and returns on investments.

LEVIES Members of a party who are elected to positions on the platform of the party are subjected to a levy on their basic salaries. Members appointed to different positions, committees or selected as ambassadors are also subjected to levies.

Last year, there were #OurNASS protests about the high cost of governance. Both parties did not do anything to address the issues raised. Of course, they wouldn’t advocate reduction in salaries of their officials because they benefit from them. These benefits are at the expense of Nigerians. Thus, the higher the better.

RETURNS ON INVESTMENTS This for me is one of the most controversial of all ways of political party funding. Granted, a political party is a corporate body and as such is allowed to make investments in real estate, companies and government securities. They are even allowed to establish businesses. There is however no indication that proper oversight is given over the “investments” political parties make.

A political party which acquires positions in government can thus give grants and contracts to companies in which they have interests. They could also manipulate government real estate policy to increase the viability of their real estate holdings. Ways political party investments can be manipulated to their gains are endless.

DONATIONS Political parties are allowed to receive donations from individuals and organisations. The Electoral Act has no limit on how much a political party can receive from an individual or organisation. Just like with investments, a friend of a political party could make legalised “kickbacks” to the political party. It was reported that in 2003, Aliko Dangote donated ₦200million to the re-election campaign of then president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Donations and investments are the ways of party financing that bother me the most. This is as both can be easily manipulated to favour them (the political parties) at the expense of the people. A road contract given to a firm in which a party has stakes or to a friend/benefactor of a party’s government is most likely going to be at an inflated price. There is thus, no incentive to reduce the costs of our physical infrastructure. Infrastructure which we are in dire need of.

Thoughts

I believe that politics and government should be distinct entities. Government policies and activity should not favour political parties at the expense of the citizenry. In order to get better governance, proper oversight on the ways political parties are funded, especially when in government, must be carried out.

I’m on Twitter @ATamsSokari.

For further reading you can consider

Pages 28 – 34 of the Electoral Act, 2010.
Pages 69 – 73 of the PDP Constitution [PDF]