Wanted: Cashless politics in Nigeria

Money politics constitutes one of the obstacles to the deepening of democratic culture in the country. KUNLE ODEREMi writes on the menace and suggestions by experts on how to stem the trend.

THE governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Godwin Emefiele, is adamant on the implementation of the cashless policy which began on September 17, 2019 in six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) tentatively. According to him, the new policy is meant to reduce the negative consequences associated with the high usage of physical cash in the economy and improve the effectiveness of monetary policy in managing inflation and driving economic growth. He said the policy is informed by the fact that high cash usage often leads to a lot of money being outside the formal economy, thus limiting the effectiveness of monetary policy in managing inflation and encouraging economic growth, just as he explained that the “high cash usage enables corruption, leakages and money laundering, among other cash-related fraudulent activities.”

Politics, business and indeed the economy are interwoven, related and inseparable. As Siamese twins, a faulty political system poses grave danger to the economy, so the need for a seamless relationship. Sadly, the yawning gap between the two has inflicted pains and agony on Nigerians. Thanks to the lack of decorum by most members of the political elite.

It is believed that between 1999, when Nigeria returned to civil rule and 2019, the country has spent more than N450 billion on elections. The figures does not preclude the humongous expenditure of the political parties, candidates and aspirants for major elective offices, including the presidency, governorship, national assembly and state Houses of Assembly.

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) executive director, Idayat Hassan gave a more graphic picture of the worsening malaise of compromising the electoral system. She noted: “When we talk about the 1993 elections, we tend to talk about it as being the freest and fairest. But evidence showed that between N120 million and N1 billion was spent during the primaries in that 1993 elections, raising issues on how we should define vote-buying.In the fourth republic, between 2003 and to 2007, the value of vote-buying ranged between N1, 750 to N2, 250. In 2019, the value of vote-buying ranged between N250 to N14000,” Ms Hassan said.

Human rights advocate, Mr Femi Falana, had decried the scale of electoral abuses in the 2019 elections, despite the huge resources invested in the national project. “This country spent over N250 billion from public purse on this useless enterprise apart from what each of the governors and political parties spent, which is more than N250 billion,” he said.

Whereas there are laws designed to moderate the various expenditures, the actors and their political parties have treated the laws with disdain and impunity to the chagrin of even the statutory regulators of the political process. The parties and their candidates devise various methods to circumvent or subvert the process often times with the collusion of agencies of government assigned to superintendent and protect the electoral process. While it might appear and sound utopian that the Nigerian political space is made cashless, the cash-for-vote or vote-for-cash has consistently cast a slur on Nigeria’s elections. In the 2019 general election, huge volume of cash reportedly funneled into the system through informal channels. They could not be captured by all official mechanisms designed to track slush and unauthorised funds so as to guarantee a free and fair contest.

Extant laws

Existing laws criminalise vote buying in the country. The Electoral Act 2010 clearly states the punishment for any breach of the relevant provisions. In Article 130 of the Act (as amended), the law states: “A person who — (a) corruptly by himself or by any other person at any time after the date of an election has been announced, directly or indirectly gives or provides or pays money to or for any person for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting at such election, or on account of such person or any other person having voted or refrained from voting at such election; or (b) being a voter, corruptly accepts or takes money or any other inducement during any of the period stated in Paragraph (a) of this section, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N100, 000 or 12 months imprisonment or both.”

Critical to the issue under discourse is Section 91 (2) of the Electoral Act which spells out the limit of the expenditure of a candidate. While a candidate for governorship or National Assembly seat deploys billions to execute their elections, the Act states that, “The maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be one billion naira (N1, 000,000,000). (3) The maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a Governorship election shall be two hundred million naira (N200, 000,000). (4) The maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred in respect of senatorial seat by a candidate at an election to the National Assembly shall be forty million naira (N40,000,000) while the seat for House of Representatives shall be twenty million naira (N20,000,000).” Others include: “Subsection (5) In the case of State Assembly election, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred shall be ten million naira (N10, 000,000). (6) In the case of a chairmanship election to an Area Council, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred shall be ten million naira (N10, 000,000). (7) In the case of councillorship election to an Area Council, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred shall be one million naira (N1, 000, 000). Section 91 (9) says “No individual or other entity shall donate more than one million naira (N1, 000,000) to any candidate.”

There is also the 2018 Revised Code of Conduct for Political Parties which is meant to institute discipline and decorum in the political area. It forbids political parties or their agents from compromising the electoral process. For instance, Section VIII (e) states inter alia that “All political parties and their agents shall not engage in the following practice: buying of votes or offer any bribe, gift, reward, gratification or any other monetary or material considerations or allurement to voters and electoral officials.”

In spite of these and a number of other measures designed to provide a level-playing ground, free and fair contest, elections into major elective public offices are fraught with fraudulent and sharp practices. The conduct of party primaries is almost about cash and carry, as the highest bidders usually have their way. Power brokers deploy their mainstay, money, to railroad the whole process in order to impose their candidates on the majority of the other party faithful without recourse to competence and merit in a lot of instances over the years.

The most affected categories of politicians are the youths and women who do not only have the numerical strength but also constitute the majority in the voting population of the country. They tend to run a haphazard race for political power/offices because of the huge war chest required to out-pace male politicians with incredible financial muscles. The predicament of the youths was most pathetic in view of the ray of hope initially created by the majority of the political elite when they chorused hosanna on the signing of the Not Too Young to Run Bill into law.

An exasperated national media director of Youth Take Over and Youth Alliance for Greater Africa Foundation (YAGA), Nathan Simeon, said: “Money politics is the key problem with Nigeria’s leadership today as selling of votes in Nigeria has become a legal trend which has changed the mentality of the young ones as they now believe aspirants that don’t spray money are jokers. Nigerian youths now believe that the #NotTooYoungToRun law is a fiasco as money now rules Nigerian politics. I personally think there should be a #NotTooPoorToRun Bill passed into law ranging from reduction in party tickets/form prices, reduction in parties cash responsibilities to counter the mentality of money politics in Nigeria. This mentality has to stop or else the destiny of the green nation will be demolished.”

Another youth leader, Seun Onih, said it was depressing that those leaders that the youths regarded as role models were behind the gross abuse of the electoral process of the country. Onih, who is of the Nigeria Youths Party (NYP), Lagos chapter, demanded that: “Anti-corruption agencies need to collaborate with financial institutions especially banks to monitor the movement of cash during elections.”

There were reported cases of politicians offering between N5000 and N10, 000 to a voter that played ball in parts of the country. The bazaar or auction, as some are wont to describe the phenomenon, cut across the major political parties and leading candidates in all the elections. Some political gladiators have even raised the stake in the awful business of mortgaging the collective interest of the people, as well as the electoral system and process. Foreign currencies, especially the United States dollars, have supplanted the naira in the gnawing fad of vote buying or selling. In their article, Money Politics and Good Governance in Nigeria, Chiazor Idowu and Egharevba Matthew Etinosa, observed that party politics had virtually been reduced to cash and carry by politicians at the detriment of the nation and the citizenry.

“Going by the events of the Fourth Republic politics in Nigeria from 1999 till date, it has become apparent that the process of seeking elective positions by politicians and their collaborators (sponsors) has reduced the practice of politicking to mere business investment venture solely for the purpose of profit maximisation. These situations speak volume of the kind of leadership the nation has had this past 14 years as manifested by the increasing state of  poverty, inequality and poor living conditions of Nigerians who are yet to savour the benefits of democratization,” they asserted.

Similarly, another expert, Ovwasa Lucky, said the trend manifested in the gross abuse of extant laws on campaign finances. In his work, Money Politics and Vote Buying in Nigeria: The Bane of Good Governance, Lucky stated: “Obviously in Nigeria, money politics and vote buying have taken the centre stage in our political activities. This is because parties and candidates have shown by their conduct during political campaigns, that good party manifestoes and integrity of candidates jostling for public offices are no longer sufficient to guarantee electoral success. Thus, the resort to vote buying.

“On the other hand, the electorate too have obviously demonstrated cynical electoral behaviour by the readiness to sell their votes to the highest bidder. This uncharitable behaviour or practice constitutes a blemish on public policy and the electoral process. In fact, it portends dangers to the democratic process of electing officers and in turn prevents good governance. While it may be difficult to eliminate the phenomenon of money politics and vote-buying its negative consequences on the Nigerian polity can be minimized by the various recommendations.”

Lucky’s position was buttressed by Abdulrahman Adamu, Danladi Ocheni, Sani Umar Ibrahim, who in their piece, Money Politics and Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Nigeria: challenges and prospects for free and fair elections, noted that the issue of money politics had assumed a more worrisome dimension. But they said the electorate could not be totally absolved from the crisis. Their words: “This ugly trend has become a subject of discussion in recent time in Nigeria and this is largely due to the inability of political parties and their candidates to conduct their political activities in an orderly manner especially during electioneering campaigns.

“Party manifestoes and integrity of candidates contesting for political offices are no longer convincing enough to guarantee them electoral successes thus, resulting to vote buying. The readiness of the electorate to sell their votes to the highest bidder is another disturbing issue which has become a threat to our democratic process. Governmental and non-governmental organisations need to expand the scope of their responsibilities to carry out elaborate sensitization and voter education of the masses about the importance of their conscience in the voting process in elections.”

Some concerned stakeholders in the electoral system in the country suggested that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the anti-graft agencies evolve more efficient and proactive valves to tame the ugly trend before it caused greater havoc to the polity, especially political parties’ campaign funds in order to effectively curb electoral fraud, including vote buying.

Others canvassed that civil society groups should apply pressure on the police and other law enforcement agencies to arrest, investigate and diligently prosecute those involved in the act of vote trading, while the National Assembly should fast-track deliberation and passage of the Bill establishing the National Electoral Offences Commission (NEOC) which should be well resourced to perform its statutory functions of arresting, investigating and prosecuting electoral offenders. Equally remarkable is that the media and the civil society organisations intensify voter education and enlightenment campaigns on the negative implications of vote trading– particularly on how it raises the costs of elections, promotes political corruption and undermines good governance.