The cost of elections in Nigeria continues to rise exponentially, so much that Nigeria’s elections have become the most expensive in the world with the cost soaring from a little above N1 billion in 1999 (Nigeria’s first democratic election year) to over N100 billion in 2015.
The economics of a Nigerian election is, at its best, bewildering. Yet, it is normal, especially for a country that makes room in the national budget for ‘wardrobe allowances’ for representatives. The same representatives who, on their worst days, have conspired to and succeeded in stealing the Senate’s mace (symbol of power for the National Assembly).
Where does all of this money go? Does the Independent National Electoral Commission, alone, guzzle all of these funds?
Expressing Interest is Not for the Faint-Hearted
Just like the general costs of running elections, the amount of money required for candidates to express their interest in contesting elections has also drastically increased in Nigeria. For instance, in 2007, candidates contesting to be president on the platform of the PDP in the general elections were each required to pay N10,000 for expression of interest forms and N5 million for nomination forms.
However, as of 2015, presidential candidates were required to pay N2 million for expression of interest forms and N20 million for nomination forms, a 300% rise in the cost of participation. And this is just a take-off point for spendings.
Campaign Expenses
In 2011, the total expenses traced to the PDP campaign were a little over N5 billion and the total for the coalition of three opposition parties, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), combined, was just above N2 billion.
In 2015, the total amount expended by the PDP increased to almost N9 billion. That is 74.75 per cent above its media expenses in 2011 and 777.4 per cent above the N1 billion total election limit for presidential candidates. The APC expended almost N3 billion in the same year; almost a billion Naira above the amount expended by three opposition parties for the 2011 elections.
This means that the opposition parties’ expenses on the media increased by 42.86 per cent and 191.58 per cent of the election limit for presidential candidates.
Cost of Advertisements and Airtime
A three-hour live broadcast on NTA costs N10 million, while a single full-page colour insert in a national daily costs between N450 000 and N500 000. When you run these advertisements for days, they end up spending hundreds of millions in just a month.
Speaking to the BBC during the election period in Nigeria, Victoria Nyeche, a candidate for the Port Harcourt Federal Constituency, said she would need at least 20 million Naira to use for her campaign, alone. For an ordinary Nigerian without access to millions, representing their constituency or state can only be a dream.
Let’s Run Through the Numbers Again
Between 1999 and 2018, INEC received N730.99 billion as budgetary allocations from the federal government, according to official documents reviewed by Daily Trust. Of this sum, N450 billion was captured under ‘electoral expenditure,’ while N191.8 billion was cited for ‘personnel cost,’ N36.9 billion ‘overhead cost’ and N54.7 billion was logged under ‘capital expenditure projects.’
Electoral Expenditure Vs Budget Expenditure
The electoral expenditure started at N1.5 billion in 1999 to N29 billion in 2002, N45.5 billion in 2006, N111 billion in 2010, and down to N87.8 billion in 2014. In 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari presented a budget of N242 billion for the elections, asking the legislature to provide N164 billion through virement (the process of transferring items from one financial account to another) in the 2018 budget, while the balance of N78bn would be covered by the 2019 budget. Till date, the funds given to INEC for the elections remain unaccounted for, just like the ones from the previous years.
The money spent on elections in Nigeria does not remotely reflect on the system, as the elections are almost often poorly conducted. From malfunctioning card readers to an embarrassing show of electoral officials announcing state results from an excel sheet, these funds seem to only work during campaigns. To curb this abuse of funds, policymakers need to domesticate the Electoral Amendment Acts and ensure compliance with spending limits by politicians.
