Abstract
Globally, political parties have become unavoidable institutions playing pivotal roles in the public administration advancement of nations. The importance of these roles have made it a subject of debate and concern among stakeholders on the best ways to finance political parties that will maintain equality and equity during elections. This article argues that electoral success in Nigeria is expected to be influenced by personality values and traits. Despite the canonic belief in integrity, people of integrity, professionals, and retired civil servants appear to be abstaining from party politics as they do not see it as an avenue through which they can make their contribution to the building of a nation because of the presumption that politics is for those who have the wherewithal different from integrity and expertise. The political competition is always economically demanding with a lot of victories and failures against the backdrop of expectations and speculations. This article interrogates the key issues responsible for election victory and failure with special reference to party funding in Nigeria. It concludes by making policy options for electoral umpire handling elections in emerging democracy like Nigeria.
Introduction
Conventionally, no nation-state can claim to be democratic without effective and functional political party. Political parties have become unavoidable institutions playing pivotal roles in the advancement of nations and these roles have called for concern among stakeholders on the best ways to finance political parties that will maintain equality and equity during elections. Various attempts by President George Washington, General de Gaulle, President Mikhail Gorbachev, and many others to build democracy without political parties had failed in the past. Undemocratic government has become a stigma reenforcing democratic liberalism across nations. This, to an extent, is making many governments despite their evidential undemocratic credentials claiming to be democratic. Political party being the soul of every democratic governance is not only sacrosanct because of the roles it plays in leadership selection or recruitment but legitimate coloration it gives to government home and abroad. However, the functionality of this institution is important and dependent on adequate funding which can be legal or illegal. The interconnection or line between legal and illegal party funding or political party funding and political corruption is always blur, which has called for caution among stakeholders who believe that politicians are hardly responsible to electorate if they are tied to financiers. To alleviate the fear poses by unregulated political party funding in Nigeria, the aborted Third Republic midwifed by 1989 constitution made provisions for public funding of political parties when Nigeria had two-party system: National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP), while 2010 Electoral Act made provision for private/individual funding of political parties. Precisely, Sections 88 to 93 of the 2010 Electoral Act set the ceiling on who can fund, amount to be contributed, and how parties can be funded in Nigeria. Despite these provisions in the ground norm, the conducts and outcomes of elections appear to have contradicted the visions and intentions of the framers of these Acts (Federal Government of Nigeria [FGN], 2010).
In many developing countries like Nigeria where poverty rate is very high, the demand of the electorate is always on the high side which put enormous pressure on politicians, which is one of the major reasons why many politicians who cannot meet all these demands to be closely tied to their financiers with the citizens being at the receiving end of this unhealthy relationship. With adequate knowledge of the position of the laws on who can contribute and how much can be contributed, politicians flagrantly flout the existing laws and political party funding is always shrouded in secrecy. The impact of this on political system is enormous as there is no equity and equality in the financial accessibility for political parties and candidates vying for positions and its impact on elections and bureaucratic structure is massive. This study addresses the impact of political party funding on the electoral victories and bureaucratic structure in the Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. This is important at least to look at the contestation between unhealthy political party funding and political integrity in facilitating electoral success in southwestern Nigeria. It starts with the introduction and it problematizes political party funding and election in Nigeria. It further examines party politics and bureaucratic structure in Nigeria, the impact of party politics on bureaucratic structure, political party funding, and electoral success in southwestern Nigeria. To achieve these, data were gathered from primary source. The total targeted population is 756 out of which 378 respondents were selected representing 50% of total population. Questionnaires were administered to three categories of respondents, which include local government executive members of the All Progressive Party and the People Democratic Party (PDP), which were selected using simple random sampling. Also, a simple fraction of Ekiti State, Ogun State, and Osun State were randomly selected for the study with a view to generalize it across the country.
Problematizing Political Party Funding and Election in Nigeria
The search for corruption-free and enviable political party politics has been the concern of every democratic country across the world. This is because no election can be free of electoral manipulation when the inflow of money is not pegged or monitored effectively. In this vein, Obiorah (2004) chronicled the Nigeria electoral journey since independence, as a circle of authoritarian military regimes with episodic interregna of civilian governments. Rentier politics in Nigeria over the years is a dominance of electoral machine controlled by political entrepreneurs comprising largely of wealthy former military officers and their civilian business cronies. The major political parties in Nigerian politics today are little more than grand agglomerations of the respective electoral “machine” of the leading political financiers.
With this description, it is very evident that the military had accumulated a lot when in power to buy what they could not buy while in power. This largely has brought a lot of money into Nigerian politics, which certainly is not within the reach of common men. Election therefore has become a commodity for candidates who are on highest financial pedestal than others. This does not only work against the financially disadvantaged candidates, it works against the state because financers often see politics as an investment and they ensure that their sponsors are closely tied to them not minding the economic and political implications on the state. Between 1999 and 2018, retired military officers have ruled Nigeria for about 11 years and no civilian government has succeeded without the support of these retired Generals. Electoral process does not start on election day nor end there, it is a process that requires huge financial base and considering extant laws which guild electoral process in Nigeria (Sections 88-94 of the 2010 Electoral Act), it is certainly not within the reach of poor participants (FGN, 2010). However, it must be stated that when there is no equality in funding between two political parties, it would be amounted to putting one on a horse and the other working with its legs and running the same race, certainly, the result would be known abinitio.
The illegality and the danger political party funding pose to election in Nigeria have informed Tignor (1993) to declare that “Every democratic system has to regulate the flow of money into politics.” Illegal political party funding presents certain problems to elections in modern liberal and emerging democracy. It fails to guarantee fairness and equality in the competition among candidates and political parties. In view of Tignor’s position, one can posit that the outcome of elections does not always reflect the interest of the majority, but the interest of the financiers. This always necessitates reactions in the form of violence, which characterized Nigerian political system in the post general election in 2007, postelection litigation, and postelection violence in 2011. Weber, cited in Ojo (2007), described political party funding as one of the most important and yet for obvious reasons, the least transparent chapters in political history. This description has shown consistent and persistent pattern of political party finance violation. Its importance, emphasized above, must have made many democratic governments to continually strive toward reducing money in politics.
Prior to the Fourth Republic in Nigeria, attempts to reduce the influence of money on election were narrowed down to Use of Tribunals Approach, Administrative Approach, and Legalistic Approach. The Tribunal Approach became prominent in Nigerian political landscape in 1956. The Foster Sutton Commission of Enquiry was set up to investigate allegations of impropriety in the conduct of politicians from the National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC) with business interests in the African Continental Bank. For similar assignment, the Coker Commission of Enquiry of 1962 was established to investigate six Western Region public corporations that were involved in corruption with the leadership of the Action Group. However, another approach is Administrative Approach, which became prominent in Nigeria with the establishment of multiple anticorruption agencies like Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Independent Corrupt Practices (ICPC), and Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) (Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC], 2005). In addition, the INEC was empowered to monitor the activities of political parties including their finances while the National Assembly also established relevant standing committees such as the Senate Committees on INEC to perform oversight functions on political activities (FGN, 1999). Legalistic Approach can be traced to the 1999 constitution, where significant attempts to control the influence of money in Nigeria politics in Sections 221, 225, and 226 were made. For instance, Section 221 prohibits any association, other than political party from making donations to any candidates during election, while Section 225 states that all published statement of assets and liabilities, sources of funding should be submitted to the INEC. The sections also prohibit political parties from holding or possessing funds from outside Nigeria while Section 226 of the constitution mandated the INEC to submit the audited report of political parties to the National Assembly (Ojo, 2007).
Obviously, the relevance and the importance of regulated political party funding in Nigeria is no more in doubt, but the sustainability of her infant democracy depends on the effective enforcement of the party funding laws. As an emerging democracy, Nigeria faces many challenges in ensuring that its citizens keep faith with the constitution and all the laws regulating politics in particular. Mato (2007) affirmed that the nature of politics in the country has turned party politics and elections into the exclusive property of the rich where citizens cannot aspire to any office without the backing of financiers. However, political party funding and its regulation are supposed to represent a great milestone in Nigeria desirous of consolidating democracy, enthroning good governance, and creating a more people friendly democratic environment where the essence of politics is government service to the people. But the present arrangement has been to the advantage of the political elites who often see politics as an investment. Similarly, Onyepere (2006) asserted that political party funding covers the entire life process and procedures of political party funding. Pinto-Duschinsky, cited in Ojo (2007), gave a broad definition as inclusive of seven different things, which are as follows: election campaign funds, political organization funds, pressure and interest group funds, political lobbing funds, litigation funds in political relevant cases, partisan mass media, and payment intended to improve the electoral process. It has shown that the major values of election cannot be achieved without adequate funding of political party activities. Money plays a prominent role in any election; it plays social, political, and economic roles, which politicians use either for the benefit of the system (legal) or for their personal aggrandizement (illegal). Omenka and Apam (2006) argued that money is one of the major determining factors in the operations of political parties and a critical indispensable factor in the political system itself. Also, the principal instrumentality of democratic governance advancement is political party funded under the limit of the law. It is the particular structure, organization, and the roles performed by the parties that provide the defining quality of democratic development.
It is indeed germane we emphasize that the success or failure of a political party in an election as well as the credibility of the entire electoral process is, in most cases, tied to how monies are raised and expended. It is for these reasons that most nations do not only concern themselves with how their political parties are funded but how it is being regulated. The role of money in Nigerian politics has been more destructive, this has been given as one of the factors that undermined democratic governance in the past and became part of the excuses for military intervention in First and Second Republic (1966 and 1983, respectively, Omenka & Apam, 2006). Consequently, Pollock (1932) wrote that the relationship between money and politics has come to be one of the greatest problems of democratic government. He explained further that healthy political life is not possible as long as the use of money is not regulated.
The crux of this assertion is that money is very important and when it is not regulated, it becomes a threat to the democratic process of any nation. Indeed, money provides access to the basic tools of a modern democracy, for example, advertising, running political parties, selecting candidates, mobilizing voters, and polling. For this reason, political party funding has been adjudged to affect almost every aspect of democratic governance in both developing and consolidated democracies (Omenka & Apam, 2006). Prior to President Obama’s election in the United States, a week before the election, some Republicans in Florida promised to queue behind Obama. This generated question such as how did Obama maneuver his way into Florida that had been known to be one of the strong holds of the Republican Party? According to “United States the Brink of History” (2008), Obama flood the state’s 10 media market with US$10 million in television advertisement. Two weeks before the election, Barack Obama enjoyed better than a four-to-one advantage on Florida television over John Sidney McCain having spent US$4.2 million as against the Republican’s US$1.1 Million. Obama’s campaign was reported to have spent US$1 million per network, at a point McCain was helped out with an additional US$600,000 from Republican National Committee. This gave the Democrats the enablement to have 250,000 voter’s registration and an edge into a 650,000 advantages.
This has shown the importance of money in any election, as the inability of the Republican Party to mobilize fund dealt a blow to the political party and its media campaigns. However, when it can be said that laws are being followed to a reasonable extent to reduce the influx of money into the American politics, Nigeria politics or parties are being funded in a shoddy manner. To Nassmacher (1989), one of the problems militating against the funding of political parties both in the developing and developed democracies is lack of universal operational definition. He further explained that “there is a fundamental difference between campaign and candidate oriented North American and party oriented European political can appropriately be used as a synonym for party funding.” Campaign and party funds are only two kinds of political money and not necessarily the most important. Party expenses and campaign finance are not the only cost of democracy. Many extra-party actors and individuals are involved in political competition with clear political objectives like shaping public policy agenda and influencing electoral process.
This position is significant in the sense that if the definitional problem is solved, political actors, academics, and Civil Society Organizations all over the world will be able to give political party finance a generally acceptable meaning and bring collectivity to the war against political party funding-related corruption that has been undermining accountability and good governance across nations. It is important to say that having international standpoint on political party funding regulation cannot be a total panacea or bring absolute adherence to the rules and regulations guiding it in the developing countries especially where unregulated political party finance has snowballed into political corruption and constituted a major threat to democracy, but it may make global or regional coalition against political party finance-related corruption a possibility. The negative impact illegal political party finance has on democracy has informed Diamond to say that political party finance when unregulated can also feed the greediness of political parties, candidates, increasing financial need and jeopardize other aspects of democracy (Diamond, 2001). This is true, for instance, where institutional capacity and leadership determination are ineffective in reducing the danger of unhealthy political party finance; party politics becomes the exclusive right of the economically powerful individuals and their cronies. To buttress this, Omenka and Apam (2006) declared that in the year 2000, the sum of 200,000,000 Naira was donated by Julius Berger Nigeria Limited to the PDP at its fund raising ceremony in Abuja. The donation according was a blatant and flagrant breach of Section 38 (2) of the Companies and Allied Matters Act.
As at the time Julius Berger’s donation was made, the ICPC and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 has already been enacted in Nigeria. The emphasis here is that the donation may not be wrong, but what is the purpose? Arising from the foregoing analysis is the fact that, if an open breach as pointed out above is not sanctioned, what is the guarantee that a clandestine donation, even from outside the country will be revealed? This has grossly aggravated the problems of illegal political party finance has constituted against the Nigerian democracy and good governance. Although transparency is a necessary goal of political party finance regulation, limiting such regulations to full transparency might not be sufficient. Argument for public disclosure as a way of ensuring accountability and transparency is good, but not an end in itself. Public disclosure in political party finance does not automatically increase governance practices. Transparency can only identify problems or irregularities that should be addressed and solved. The public needs to trust both agencies charged with enforcing the rules as well as the political party financing thereby eliminating its individual members’ misconducts. It is also important to make political parties remove corrupt individual, improve internal and external mechanisms, and follow-up with proper enforcement.
However, with the cankerworm of corruption eating deep in many countries, with the pervasive influence of terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering, many countries have been putting in place measures that will ensure that their citizens, party systems, and public institutions do not get infiltrated with illegal funds and as such cause instability in countries or polities. Disclosure of information about income and expenditure by political parties and candidates is nowadays seen as a critically important component of a democratic campaign and political party finance regime (FGN, 2007). When applying this disclosure principle in Nigeria, it has disclosed a lot of the underhand dealings that took place in the last four general elections in Nigeria as well as abuse of state and administrative resources by political office holders. It has also made the populace to appreciate the depth of the rot which abuse of political party finance regulation has brought upon the country. Many instances in our political history can be cited to substantiate this. The revelation made by the erstwhile Governor of Plateau State, Chief Joshua Dariye, about how he distributed the US$1.6 billion fund meant for the state to the political party’s campaign finance of some chapters of the People’s Democratic Party and some party bigwigs (Omenka & Apam, 2006). The mayhem in Anambra State over the degenerated case of Dr. Chris Nngige (godson) to honor a pact signed with Chief Uba (godfather) for reimbursement of Uba and many more have shown how unregulated the Nigeria political party finance is, and the threat it constitutes to the Nigerian nascent democracy.
The activities of godfathers and godson in Nigeria have generated a national groundswell of support for political party finance reform, yet, no comprehensive or systematic dialogue among politicians, civil society, and the general public on prospects for reform or any concerted action to address the problem (Omenka & Apam, 2006). Many politicians have seen Nigerian politics as their personal investments, which they invest their monies to recoup it in many folds, while the necessary agencies that supposed to enforce the political finance laws proactively appear to be compromising and conspiring to a reasonable extent to subvert the Nigerian democratic process through lack of institutional capacity to superintend the existing political party finance laws. Whichever way political party finance is being examined, its overwhelming influence on good governance cannot be downplayed in any democratic society. On this note, as a corollary to the role of political party in democracy and the influence of money on party politics, the relationship between political party and bureaucratic structure shall be our focus subsequently.
Findings
Political Party Funding and Bureaucratic Structure in Nigeria
A distant observer may find it very difficult to link the two together most importantly in a country where legal provisions do not allow bureaucrats to participate in politics. Nigeria unlike France forbids her civil servants from playing professional politics but despite this, bureaucrats often dance to the tune of politics as who becomes who in the civil service is often determined by who emerges in the general election. Political party, therefore, is an indispensable factor in any democratic process and the interplay between political parties in multiparty system often determine the nature of bureaucratic structure in every political system.
In almost every developing democracy, the major albatross militating against the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery to the people has been the nature of party funding. Although, to laymen, water-tight relationship is expected between political parties and the civil service because of the way politics is being played and the climes they belong. But this is not always the case as political parties/politicians and career officers are major players in many countries and they are supposed to work together for the collective good of society. Holmstrom and Milgrom cited in Lyer and Mani (2009) succinctly opined that bureaucrats typically face low-powered incentives and politicians have limited constitutional power to lure or fire them. Obviously, this is consistent with a desirable feature of the rule of law which is that public policy implementation should not be politicized. Given such constitutional constraints, how would politicians facing electoral pressures ensure that their preferred policies are implemented by such protected bureaucrats?
The argument here is not whether they both play roles in the public affairs management, but how the “electoral pressure” of the politicians affects the career officers in performing their functions as civil servants. Political activities in Nigeria are so expensive that the money the politicians and political parties spend on election is enough to transform economies of some African Countries. In any case, hardly can any politician vie for any political position at any level without the concerted efforts of godfathers to see him or her through. Attempts to pay back the financiers have made the political office holders to continuously pressurize the career officers to pave way for corruption, which has led to the stealing of billions and created high level of poverty in the polity. Every political office holder is therefore keen on who becomes who in the bureaucratic structure in any political system with the intention of covering up their sharp practices. Ordinarily, appointment in the civil service should be based on merit, but this is not always the case as many appointees have been retired untimely not because of unmeritorious nature of their services, but different beliefs and perceptions in their service to the state which may not have anything to do with effectiveness or efficiency in their offices.
Ideally, how can political office holder be civil and democratic when the party that produced him lacks internal democracy? This has been the major problem in Nigeria. In a developed democracy, politicians can assign responsibility to the bureaucrats to perform specific tasks, but lack the power to recruit, dismiss, demote, or change the wages of appointed bureaucrats. Bureaucrats in turn care about the prestige and importance of the post they are assigned to. The politicians can assign bureaucrats across posts of varying importance as a means to control them (Lyer & Mani, 2009). If the assigned roles are antithetical to the ethics and ethos of civil service, he or she may not carry it out and still goes to perform his or her official duty without any intimidation. This is not the case in Nigeria. When a career officer is not ready to succumb to the pressure from politicians, he or she can be moved from a “juicy” department to another department or shown the way out through premature retirement or indictment.
The inability of the career officers who are occupying political positions within the civil service to create a line between politics and professionalism has been responsible for perversion of public policy, total submission to the pressure from politicians, embezzlement of public funds, and total disregard to the ethics and ethos of the civil services with the fear that any altercation with the political officers can consume them. In India, like any other developing countries, Lyer and Mani concluded that the two major sources of inefficiency in the Indian administrative system stem from the fact that not all important positions are occupied with the most skilled bureaucrats, due to the politicians’ preference for a degree of control over outcomes. The other is that politicians’ assignment practices result in underinvestment in skill by junior bureaucrats with career concerns, as investment in loyalty to specific politicians provides an alternative path to career success (Lyer & Mani, 2009). This is not different in Nigeria as many junior officers in the civil service are more powerful than their superior bosses because of their romance and rapport with the political office holders. The pressure from politicians most especially in Nigeria is not unconnected with the way political parties and campaigns are being funded.
The modes of funding campaigns and political parties have become threats to the performance of political office holders. Attempt, therefore, to satisfy the “godfathers” has often made them to pressurize the career officers in bending their rules of engagement at the detriment of professionalism and the economy. To Pepple (2012), career officers are meant to carry out some important roles. The roles are so important that the success of any administration could be said to largely dependent on their proactivity. According to Pepple (2012), civil servants/career officers are to carry out these roles: Guidance in policy making, assistance in policy planning, providing policy advice to ministers and other functionaries of government, building and communicating institutional memory to decision makers, guiding and managing resources required to accomplish policy objectives, delivering quality public services, establishing standards and enforcing norms, measuring, monitoring and evaluating the performance of public sector organisations and other non-government agencies rendering services on behalf of Government and raising managing revenues. (p. 2)
Ideally, career officers are supposed to strictly carry out these roles for the development of the state, but it seems they often succumb to the pressure from the political office holders. In most cases, it is not that the political office holders do not believe in the development agenda set for themselves or by his political parties, but the patrons who financed their elections and their parties are investors who want to recoup their money in multiple folds. This pressure is always transferred to the career officers who can ensure the success of their misdemeanor and cover it up. For example, at the state level, no matter the pressure from the state governor to embezzle, using unqualified political thugs, allocate government lands to political cronies or through proxy, bending public policies to protect the businesses of their godfathers, and so on, all these cannot be successfully carried out without the support of the civil servants. The same thing at the Local Government level and at the Federal level, nothing can be perpetrated by the official or appointee without the support of civil servants. One thing that is not clear is the way civil servants often bow to the pressure from the political office holders and at times initiate the act. Is it because political parties are no longer subscription organizations as they used to be, members only carry party cards and they do not put their money where their mouth is (Ayoade, 2006). One thing that is certain is that patrons have become a scary phenomenon in Nigerian politics and the pressure the godfathers mount on their godsons is having overbearing effect on bureaucracy and the activities of bureaucrats. However, the activities of patrons, the pressure, and the impact it has on governance were clearly captured by Ayoade (2006) when he declares thus: The godfather gives support to install the godson oftentimes by devious anti-democratic means. Their strategies are everything but fair. They are merchants of fear. They dispense violence freely and fully on those who stand in their way. In this they play the additional role of warlord. They establish, train and maintain a standing personal “army” which they ostensibly supplement with a sprinkling of the official police detachment. In order to effect electoral change, they bribe election officials to deliver the winning election figures. The initial support given by the godfather then becomes an investment with a colossal rate of returns because the godfather becomes the “de facto” governor. The godfather makes substantial critical governance decisions, appointments and is recipient of either major juicy contracts or earns inordinate stipend. Godfathers sometimes reverse executive decisions. (p. 83)
In most cases, some of these activities of godfathers influence very negatively the political office holders and pressurize the career officers who cannot implement some of these requests without bending or compromising administrative rules and public good. Corruption has reached its apogee because the career officers conjoin with the political office holders who are desperate to redeem the contracts or covenants they have had with the godfathers who bankrolled their parties and their elections. In few cases, when a political officer is determined to put the citizens first before the patron, the governor may expend more energy and time struggling to free the resources of the state from the predatory grips of his godfather than attending to critical issues of governance.
Political Party Funding and Electoral Success in Southwestern Nigeria
Three statements were put forth to examine the relationship between political party financing and electoral success in Southwestern Nigeria. The findings were discussed using analysis from both descriptive and test statistics.
As shown in Table 1, the chi-square value (67.84) revealed that contesting and winning elections in Nigeria depend largely on the amount of money at parties’ and candidates’ disposal. An interpretation of the t value distribution (31.644) is that to a reasonably large extent, amount of money at the disposal of political parties and their candidates dictates the direction of the elections outcome. However, as the response value ranges from 1 to 5, the mean score (2.59) connotes that ability of a party and/or candidate to spend money may though affect outcome of an election, but it is not absolute. There is a standard deviation of 1.48 that the richest party or candidate may lose an election. Also, the mean score (2.22) showed that outcome fell in agreement with the statement that excess fund in the custody of a political party constitutes a major threat to free and fair election, since p < .05, the chi-square value (153.91) confirmed the significant threat posed by excess fund in the custody of political party to free and fair election in the study area. A logical inference could be drawn from the statistics above that even if the richest candidate/party does not win elections at all times; the excess fund available for spending in the party’s custody remains a threat to the process. In addition, the t value distribution (30.408) showed that the extent to which it could be possible for political parties to use money to make INEC officials, law enforcement agents and other stakeholders compromise the election process in their favor. With chi-square value (111.53) and p value (.000), it follows that whenever INEC officials, law enforcement agents, and some other stakeholders compromise in favor of a political party, the most likely cause is financial inducement.
The Impact of Political Party Finance on Electoral Success in Southwestern Nigeria.
Source. Ayeni (2015).
Note. INEC = Independent National Electoral Commission.
Political party funding is an aspect of political finance that plays notable roles in party politics. In both developed and developing nations, it is either money raised by the candidates or political parties to fund political process. The roles which money plays in democratic process of nations are the same. Significantly, political process starts during the primary elections. As soon as candidates are not put on the same platform to operate, the destination is already known. The disparities of money in politics often create an uneven playing field in election contests. Large sum of money gives certain parties or candidates undue advantage over others. Although, the party or candidate with the most money may not always win the election, a correlation however exists between the two. Wide discrepancies in levels of funding between political parties and candidates constrain opportunities for political competition and tends to weed out challenges (Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, 2003). During the primary elections, irrespective of how good is the political manifesto, money plays decisive roles, as party leadership and members always prefer someone who has made significant financial contributions to the party. During general elections, citizens always prefer someone who can throw money around.
Consequently, money is an essential part of political process and should be treated as such. Although, in new democracies, it should not be treated solely as a problem, though it can be problematic, it must be seen as a means to create a basis for democratic governance. The principle of “one person” “one vote” coexist with the concept of the legitimate use of money for political purposes. In societies with broad middle class, the tension between these two principles is not as great as it is in developing countries, where it can result in overwhelming influence. The poor may use their right to vote, but sometimes without real choice because the competition is unfair (Nassmacher, 2003). This has been the case in Nigeria. The usage of money by the politicians and the altitude of followers have impacted negatively into the polity. The reality of this in Nigeria is that candidates invest large amounts of their private savings to contest in the elections. The implication of this is that only individuals willing to invest large amount of money in politics become candidates. It was also noted that money distorts the candidates’ selection process within parties and largely influences who wins. Even after the intraparty contest, the interparty contests are majorly decided by the amount of money at the disposal of candidates and political parties. For example, in 2011 general elections, the PDP campaigned in all the 36 states of the country. Parties like Congress for Progressive Change, Social Democratic Mega Party, All Nigerian Peoples Party, Hope Democratic Party, and so on, could not campaign in all the states in the country because of the limited resources at their disposal. When political parties could not campaign in all the 36 states and 774 local governments, the chance of winning in 120,000 poling units would be slim no matter how good the manifestoes of the party are.
Concluding Remark
Although this study does not conceive alternative for democracy, but with the opinion that democracy is seen as the best form of government with ever more countries adopting it (Fukuyama, 1992; Mbogori & Chiguda, 1999), may fail to achieve its inherent values in Nigeria owing to the role money plays in Nigerian democracy. Currently, Nigerian democracy is losing voters, credible men and women are missing from governance not because of sheer complexity of social phenomena, but because a lot are wrong with political party administration with its colossal effect on governance. This study therefore concludes that for elections to be a reflection of people’s perception of candidates and political parties, there is a need to discourage the illegal role money plays in Nigerian politics by putting in place enforceable legal restrictions and building human capacity to superintend.
As shown in the Table 1, the chi square (67.84) revealed that contesting and winning elections in Nigeria depend largely on the amount of money at parties’ and candidates’ disposal. Unfortunately, this is a canonic opinion. There is need for the nongovernmental organizations, academics, community-based organizations to engage in massive voters education on the reason why social contract should be built on track record and the integrity of the candidates not amount at his disposal. Similarly, poverty and credible elections are antithetical and it is like looking for water in the desert. Countries where there is acute poverty cannot relatively experience democratic stability and advancement. This is because vote-buying, money-induced rigging, and political violence will become prominent as citizens see elections as a way of getting their share from candidates in the same way party members take the opportunity of election to extort their political elites. This is therefore imperative for governments that have passion for democratic advancement to initiate and religiously implement poverty alleviation policies that can give electorate the enablement to choose independently candidates of their choice.
Consequently, as the chi-square value (153.91) confirmed the significant threat posed by excess fund in the custody of political party to free and fair election, government must make extant laws that will ensure accountability and reduce the influx of money into political parties. This can also be enhanced by building institutions (INEC) with the capacity to track illicit funds with modern technology and technique. It is important because any governmental arrangement where technology is not allowed to play pivotal roles is not worth glancing at.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
