Nigeria Content Online

In
Nigeria the issue of party funding has for long posed a serious concern
to watchers of our political scene. In the First and Second Republics
it was an issue that was hotly debated in the state parliaments and the
National Assembly.

It was the fear of
allowing the so called ‘moneybags’ to put political parties in their
pockets that led the regime of Ibrahim Babangida in the nineties to
make government partly responsible for their funding.

Under the 2006
Electoral Act currently in force while the recommendations of the Uwais
Panel is being debated, the National Assembly is empowered to approve a
grant to be disbursed to political parties. The 2006 law also
stipulates how the grant should be divided, 10 percent going to be
shared equally among the registered political parties and the remaining
90 percent disbursed in proportion to the number of National Assembly
seats won by each party. The law also gives INEC the power to place a
limit on the amount of money or other assets an individual or group can
contribute to a political party. For a presidential candidate the sum
is N500 million, governor N100 million, senator N20 million and a
representative N10 million. A state assembly candidate, or chairman N5
million and a local councillorship, N500,000.

It is an open question whether this aspect of the electoral law has ever been paid attention to not to talk of being enforced.

Some of the
present 50 parties have not in any way justified the money they receive
from government. It has been discovered that some of the parties only
exist on the pages of newspapers and magazines. They only function when
elections are coming or when funding is released by government. They
collect the funds, share and go home to rest till another round of
funding is available. A few of the parties are even run by close-knit
family members.

So what does a party exist for if it is only to share government funds?

As the nation
moves towards elections next year, it has become imperative to revisit
the issue. The Uwais Panel report recommends the continued funding of
parties by government through INEC, but suggests a ceiling for
individual donations for each category of office. These figures run
from a limit of N20 million for individual donations for a presidential
candidate to N15 million for a governor, N10 million for a senator, N3
million for a local government chairmanship candidate.

It makes eminent sense for party members to fund their own organisation.

If members pay
dues and subscriptions, there is the tendency that they will take the
party seriously and would not allow it to be hijacked.

In other countries
we know that parties raise funds through several avenues and there is a
limit to which an individual or corporate body can contribute to
parties, we must begin to have that here too.

This has become
necessary because we know how much corporate bodies and individuals
gave to the Obasanjo campaign fund during his first term, and we now
know how that affected or coloured his judgment in their favour.

Our stand is that
for electoral reform to be meaningful and effective it has to address
how political parties are to be funded. The nation should not think
that the removal of Maurice Iwu would spell clean elections and make
things run smoothly. One of the crucial pillars of democracy is
political parties and the proper nurturing and development of them
should not be neglected or else there is no way we can succeed as a
democracy. Finally, government funding of political parties as
desirable as it looks because it serves as a form of assistance to weak
parties, should be regulated. The Uwais panel recommends that only
parties that score 2.5 percent of the votes in the 2011 elections
should be eligible to receive funds from public grants, but this like
many other issues may be expunged in the final document that emerges
when the two houses have reconciled to produce a final bill.

In the final analysis whatever the form the legislation that makes
it through may take, it will have no effect if it is not enforced.