With the ban on campaigns for presidential and National Assembly elections lifted, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday lamented its dilemma at tracking and slamming candidates who exceed the stipulated amount fixed for campaign spending.
The commission however stated that it has put structures in place to ensure that they track such campaign spendings as directed by the law. In line with the electoral timetable released by INEC and in keeping with the 90 days provision, presidential and National Assembly aspirants have from Monday, November 16, 2014, been cleared to commence campaigns.
But governorship and state House of Assembly aspirants will have to wait till November 30, 2014 before they can begin to campaign. However, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, stated that while the electoral commission is bent on tracking campaign spendings by politicians, it can only do so after the act of over spending has been committed. He noted that unlike in 2011 general elections, a specific unit has been created by the commission to monitor spending of candidates in the 2015 elections. According to section 91 of the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended, the maximum expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1billion; for governorship it is N200million. The Electoral Act also placed a campaign ceiling of N40million and N20million for senatorial and House of Representatives candidates respectively. N10million is the fixed amount for election expenses in the state assembly and chairmanship elections for an area council.
Accordingly, sanctions for candidate who knowingly flaunts these campaign spending limits are as follows: for presidential election its 1m or 12 months imprisonment or both. Governor is N800,000 or nine months or both. 600,000 or imprisonment for six months would be slammed on a senatorial candidate while 500,000 or five months imprisonment will be slammed on a House of Representative candidate who defaults on the campaign spending. But explaining the situation yesterday to some newsmen, Idowu, said “the commission has put structures in place to track expenditure. That structure did not exist in 2011. And we could not do much in that regard. Now we. Have been able to put structure in place to track expenditure and we are going to be doing that. But the situation now is that we can only know whether a person has over spent until he or she has spent it. “But you can stop people from spending until the person has spent. What the law anticipates is that we have put ceiling on spending and we will now monitor to know whether we can make a case about it.”
He continued “INEC can only work within framework of the law. You are absolutely right that INEC does not have the capacity to handle the magnitude of electoral offenses. That is given and we have said over and again. That is why we have always called for election tribunal. But if the law says INEC should do something even within the constraints, INEC will do what is possible within those constraints.” “INEC will do what it has to do within the framework of the law as it exist at the present. If the law makes a certain provision. For instance the law says we should publish the audited yearly accounts of the political parties and that is what we have always done. We audit and publish that is what the law says we should do. So after we publish what next. There are places where you have offenses and you don’t have sanctions stated.”
On specifics on the measures put in place by the commission he said “we have a department that tracks such expenditures, the department is functional. The capacity is there.” On whether they will be liasoning with banks, he said “as many ways a possible. Adverts and each of pages cost, bill boards etc. They will add up all the expenses made and come up with the outcome.”
