By Clifford Ndujihe

LAGOS—Except the in-coming chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, decides not to toe the path of his predecessor, Professor  Maurice Iwu, the 59 political parties are set to lose N1.3 billion grant to the commission.

Of the N1.26bn appropriated in the 2008 and 2009 budgets as grants to  parties, INEC, according to Vanguard investigations, released N600m only. This year, N630m was appropriated and the money is yet to be released. Thus, the electoral umpire is owing the parties N1.29bn.

However, none of the parties is ready to fight for the grants via the law courts. The prevailing wind in the polity is against releasing of grants, to check proliferation of political parties. And stoppage of grants is one of the amendments the federal lawmakers made in the1999 Constitution, which is awaiting ratification by the 36 state Houses of Assembly.

In 2008 and 2009, INEC released N6m each to a few of the parties irrespective of their performance at the polls. The move pushed some of the parties to take the commission to court.

Chairman of Citizens Popular Party, CPP, Chief Maxi Okwu, said since 2008, INEC had not been releasing grant in full to the parties.

According to him, Iwu claimed that funds were released to INEC as “contribution to local organisations” and so “he gave 50 per cent to parties and 50 per cent to Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs.”