Soliciting foreign funds for political campaigns, was Peter Obi right?

As the political parties prepare for the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the commencement of political campaigns, political parties and their candidates have been traversing the entire country and the diaspora for support and assistance. There is nothing unusual about this, as political parties are required by law to fund their activities from sources permissible only by law. For the purpose of national security, restrictions are placed on certain classes of donations. This article is relevant in the light of the recent effort by the Labour Party’s candidate to seek diasporan crowd funding for his political campaign.

Section 85(a) of the Electoral Act, 2022 seems to forbid disaporan funding of political parties. Also a combined reading of the provisions of section 225(2)(3)(4)(a)(b) &(5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) provide that every political party shall submit to INEC a detailed annual statement and analysis of its sources of funds and other assets together with a statement of its expenditure in such form as INEC may require; the provision referred to particularly states that no political party shall hold or possess any funds or other assets outside Nigeria or be entitled to retain any funds or assets remitted or sent to it from outside Nigeria. There have been divergent opinion on the legality and propriety of Peter Obi’s diasporan crowd funding effort and not their candidates. In other words, that funds donated to candidates of political parties by foreign interests are not forbidden. Therefore, Peter Obi, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar and other contestants are free to go to Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, Mexico or anywhere in the world to get foreign financial support for their political campaigns to occupy the number one office in Nigeria. What a convenient argument! However, I do not buy it.

Some prominent legal practitioners have voiced their opposition to foreign crowd funding. Oluseun Abimbola, SAN, a former Attorney General of Oyo State put it aptly when he stated that “How desirable is that? For Presidential candidates to have their campaigns funded by external interests or even rogue nations seeking a leg room. I don’t think we should expose our democracy to a nation like North Korea, for example, to start to blackmail our C in C. I think we should strongly oppose such practice for any candidate, and aim for higher values if we must grow our democracy.” Anthony Malik, SAN,without mincing words, rightly stated that “The political parties and the candidates are coterminous. They are one and the same. So what touches, concerns or affects one also affects the other.” This is true in view of the provisions of sections 221 and 229 of the Constitution that forbid Diasporan contribution to the election expenses of any candidate at an election and also defines an “association” to include a body “unincorporates who agree to act together for any common purpose.”

No matter how the legal puritans or straight-jacket scholars may look at it or twist the argument, there is a huge danger to our country’s internal security when we give an open cheque to candidates and politicians (or their agents) to go round the world seeking donations from foreign interests. The entire security apparatus in the United States of America had to go with Donald Trump on the allegation that he received the support of Russia during his campaign to be the President of the United States of America. Also, money laundering is a serious crime as it has been linked several times to international terrorism. We would be doing a great disservice to Nigeria, our country if we continue to be too legalistic on matters of national security and integrity of our country. Patriots should go beyond inelegance in legal drafting to actually discover the true intention of the legislators in making the law.

If the intention of the law is to ban political parties from seeking, obtaining and/or retaining any form of foreign support, it does not sound logical that candidates of the political parties would be allowed to do what their political parties have been banned from doing. Political parties do not exist in vacuum. It is the candidates and members of the political parties that actually run, direct, organise and dictate what their political parties do.

In conclusion, no political party, candidate or member of any political party or group of persons purporting to organise crowd funding for a political campaign of a candidate would be acting within the ambit of the law if the source of their funding is linked to foreign interests.