PDP, APC lavished N11.66bn on 2015 election campaigns –CSO

An Abuja-based civil society organisation, Centre for Social Justice, CJS, has said that the two major political parties, All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, spent a whopping N11.6bn on the 2015 presidential election campaigns.


Lead Director, CSJ, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, gave the statistics while releasing a report on campaign finance and the use of state administrative resources in the 2015 presidential election.
According to him, out of the N11.66bn, PDP spent the highest amount with N8.75bn, representing 75 per cent, while APC spent N2.91bn on its presidential candidate.

Onyekpere, however, stated that the N11.6bn was the amount that could be empirically verified by
 the group, stressing that there were other expenses incurred in the course of the campaigns by the two political parties that could not be ascertained.

Giving a breakdown of the amount spent, he said PDP spent N1.28bn on campaigns and rallies while APC spent N671.06m.

For billboards, he said PDP spent N473.16 million, APC N190.38 million; while N532.1 million and N410 million was spent by the PDP and APC respectively on electronic media campaign.
Other campaign expenses are electronic media advertisement where PDP spent N3.98bn and APC N1.06bn; print media campaign which saw PDP spending N2.47bn and APC N579.6 million.

The amount spent by both parties, according to the group, was higher than the N1bn ceiling fixed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for presidential candidates.
However, Onyekpere said from their analysis, there were evidence which showed that the ceiling of N1bn for candidates to finance presidential election would not be enough and should be reviewed to about N5bn.

“The failure of INEC to delimit the amount of money an individual or organisation can donate to a political party was also an issue in the election. This provided a leeway for an open regime on donations to the parties.

“The ceiling of N1 billion for candidates in a presidential election should be upwardly reviewed to N5 billion. This is based on observed and necessary expenses to mount a viable campaign for the presidency.
“The review to N5 billion should not be contained in the body of the Electoral Act. Rather, the Act should be amended and the power to determine the ceiling across all the elections given to INEC,” he stated.
The group, in the report, recommended that penalties for spending in excess of the ceiling should be increased to not less than a fine of 50 per cent of the value of the excess expenditure to serve as a deterrent to such act.
He also advocated that the terms of imprisonment be increased to not less than two years and a debarment from participation in politics for a period of two years.
The report also recommended that donations to candidates and political parties should be made tax deductible up to a maximum limit of N1 million ceiling for individual donations to candidates.

He added: “The electoral act should provide for compulsory collaboration between government agencies such as Federal Inland Revenue Service, INEC, and anti-corruption agencies to determine the source of funds donated to candidates and political parties.
“Also, donors should be followed up by FIRS to verify their tax payment to the treasury.”