THE  bane of Nigeria’s political system is finance. Nigeria has one of the most expensive political systems in the world. We simply cannot afford it. There are no laws or culture about how to finance a political party or how much to spend on an election and where the money is coming from. What is the structure of parties and Governance in Nigeria?

There are 774 Local Governments in Nigeria. I want to look at how much it would cost a political party to exist in all these local governments. Each local government will have an average of no less than 15 wards. Each ward will have at least 7 party officials. – headed by the Chairman, Deputy, Secretary etc. Thus, the party apparatchik of each local government will be as follows: 7×15= 105 people (ward level). Each local government will have at least 20 officials at the local government headquarters level (i.e. 15 ward Chairman added to 5 others (in reality they are more than) 15+5 but for illustration purposes let’s take 5, i.e. 20 party officials per local government.

Thus, at the local government level plus ward level there are approximately 105+5=110 party officials. Nigeria has 774 Local Government areas: party office holders will then be 774×110 = 85,140. Now add the ex-officio members – all members of the State and National Assemblies plus all Commissioners and Ministers and Members of the Board of Trustees – all of whom may attend the National Convention of the party where the Presidential candidate will be elected.

WARD CONGRESS

LOCAL  GOVERNMENT CONGRESS

STATE  CONGRESS

NATIONAL CONVENTION

So how much does a party need to be fully on ground and who pays? As already calculated. – If the South South co-coordinator, for example, was given N600 million i.e. N100 million for each of the six states in the South-South. Rivers State has 23 local governments. He would have to give about N4.3 million per Local Government. The party officials in each local government number about 110. How long will N4.3 million last during a campaign? The coordinator still has 5 states unfunded.

There may be other sources of funds – e.g. the Governor and some big party wigs. Conservatively the six states in the South-South will need N2.1 billion. Then multiply that by six zones = N12.6 billion.

When a thief is caught, it is never a good argument of defence that he is not the only one stealing or that Mr. Smith steals also. The PDP has been caught stealing money with reckless abandon. The sums are seemingly staggering but in reality it is not that much in real terms. Both the APC and the PDP bought thousands of vehicles for the election – no less than about five boats. Both parties had access to private jets which they used. How much did that cost? One important reform of our political system is to record the cost of running the parties and the costs of the campaign as is done in all worthwhile democracies. When the President of the United States uses Air force 1, the Presidential plane, for non official duties, he pays for it. Our Presidential candidates of PDP and APC had use of aircraft- who owned the aircrafts and who paid for them?

I have gone into some details to describe the organisation of a Nigeria political party. The number of people involved above does not include those leaders of the Party or Governors etc. would classify as security. All political parties have a large retinue of thugs many of whom follow the winning political party into office – e.g. the Nigeria Militants were largely thugs, who, when the PDP swept the South South and moved into political offices – brushed up their acts and became PAs, Ministers, Members of Board of Parastatals etc. Among these thugs are various occultists who replenish their members as others get promoted into better positions. The North East militants, especially Borno, Adamawa and Kano were breeding and recruiting grounds for later day terrorists as much as the Niger Delta produced militants who later turned out to be recipients of the amnesty largesse. But a system such as existed in the North East and Kano and in the Niger Delta region can never be fair to all; quarrels were frequent and each dispute led to greater militancy from the disaffected and dissatisfied. Even the strong threat of cults and fundamentalism were never sufficient to bind them together. Put succinctly, each party had active armed guards and a large reservoir of reservists in a country where youth unemployment was over 60% – 70%.

But returning to our theme. So who funds the parties? Is there a trade off, in funding and political preferment?

We now know who and how the PDP was funded until recently. Most of the money came from the South South – especially where a number of ambitious politicians sought the office of Vice-President after Obasanjo in 2007. During Jonathan’s Presidency funding moved away from the South South (except Rivers and Delta, probably to a lesser extent Akwa Ibom) – the gamble had paid off for Jonathan but can the formula work again? On the face of it this was highly unlikely, but it did not stop the massive funding from some South South States.

PDP could fund itself also from the Federal purse and did so massively. In all the political parties in Nigeria when you say, for example, PDP was federally funded, you will hear some members of the National Executive Committee (NEC), Board of Trustee (BOT) or officials in the PDP Secretariat claim that they did not see any money that the party was broke.

As the revelations from the series of inquiries into Government Departments and Parastatals continue to show – a lot of money went to PDP. They may not have been distributed fairly but money went there. The party’s electoral machine was mobilised; buses and cars were bought, advertisements were commissioned and money voted for these and other necessary election expenses. The party had a budget of some trillion naira; the President and Vice-President, First Ladies and friends, travelled by air, land and sea to campaign, venues booked for campaigns, uniforms, clothes, bunting, flags etc; were bought special events and rallies were organised, throughout Nigeria, in wards, local government areas, states, Abuja and overseas. Traditional rulers, Labour leaders etc. were canvassed, gifts, food, money flowed freely but a large chunk of these funds did not go to party work but to private pockets.

Parties and politics cost a lot of money none of which is really accountable. As with PDP so with APC- how did APC pay for its party officials, its uniforms, transport, rallies and conventions etc. Members of APC, APGA, Labour etc. are Nigerians not people from Jupiter, or Mars or other planets. We saw their campaigns, their slogans, and the entourage that followed the campaigns. Who paid and how were these paid for? It is trite to say that as the South South had contributed heavily to the elections in 2003, 2007, 2011. Many states in the North, the West and Lagos were assumed to have footed the bill of the last election. Many of the states have a Nigerian version of the “Super Packs” which are used in the United State to support candidates and political parties. Contracts are given for various projects. Those who won these projects are then approached to make donations to the party. I am definitely not suggesting that there were pre-arrangements or kick backs, I just do not know. But political entourages do not travel for free, and there is no culture of voluntary service in the cause of a political party in Nigeria. We saw the APC, APGA, Labour party members and leaders hoping in and out of planes, all over Nigeria, ditties, slogans, were sang and played on radio, television and rallies at all levels – wards, local governments, states and Abuja. How were these paid for? Who paid for them?

In the US and most democratic countries in the West, individual donations to political parties are severely limited and scrutinized. This is why President Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders could claim that most of their money came from personal donations that were less than a few dollars. It is, of course, entirely possible that this miraculous transformation has arrived in Nigeria and APC, APGA, Labour etc. now have millions of Nigerians sending a few Naira to them for campaign. In that case Nigerians must be proud of this achievement and we should shout it at the top of our lungs and shame all those who continuously bray at our systemic corruption. Whatever the case may be Nigerians deserve to know how this happened: We deserve to change our electoral laws and campaign contributions such that each party accounts for its source of funds before the election and tell us how those funds were spent. Where corporate bodies and individuals had made substantial donations we should know, the amount recorded and tax duty paid on such donations. At the end of the election all those EU and UN and other monitoring observers and agencies should come back, with their forensic auditors, a phrase we like even when they do worse than nothing (see the forensic report on NNPC) to check the books of the political parties. There is a school of thought who says that, a pig is a pig. Another says that it does not matter how a leader gets to the top provided once he is there, like the great philosopher king of Plato, or the Prince of Machiavelli, he does good. I do not know who is right but still others say that process is both vital and important.

There are too many Nigerians who know our entire problems, all our solutions but would not be caught dead at even a neighborhood meeting. Civil societies cannot shirk its responsibility to call leaders to account, to scream at injustice wherever perpetrated. To do less is to live a life of doom destined to despotism, sometimes, despotism is not confined to a person; it may be the despotism of a small group or even of a party.

We must aim at finding ways to involve a large number of our people in the political process, that involvement should go viral, as they say in social media. When it is viral, we curb excesses, we know our strength, and we motivate our people for growth and stability.

The PDP allegedly shamelessly stole to run and lose the election. How did the APC and its allies pay to win their own election?

Certain functions of Government, for example, the collection of taxes to increase internally generated revenue (IGR) were farmed out to corporations and companies for a fee, sometime as high as 5% of total collected; sometimes even more. These companies were known to be sympathetic to the fortunes of the awarding government (the concession would not have been awarded if it were not so).

Prime Government real estate was sold or offered to notable supporters of the party – any tour of Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Asaba etc. would see fantastic buildings, high rises, and hotels going up like the proverbial mushrooms. If Mr. Donald Trump was in Nigeria he would seat comfortably among fellow estate owners, hotel entrepreneurs and golf course owners and so on. His plane would park where the planes of the specially favoured and highly industrious park their planes. Since there is no law against donating huge amounts to political parties, these tycoons would be canvassed for contributions. Infrastructural concessions, shopping malls, event centres etc. are springing up all over Nigeria. Are the owners of these hotels, estates, high rises contributors to political parties? Do the parties go to bed with companies and individuals whose source of income may be suspect? The only way to avoid embarrassing questions and suspicious is to be transparent and disclose all contributors and their sources of income.

In the West the laws as to party contributions exist. The Labour party is a child of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and it is largely funded by that Union and others supporters who believe in the ideology of the Trade Union, the creation of a social welfare state.

The Central Office of major political parties in the West are large, complex, well funded and have several departments that study policy, strategy and tactics; they also study the economy, the environment etc. The parties sometimes farm these studies out to research institutions, public affairs institutes, public opinion monitors, researchers, advisors and enumerators – e.g. gallop polls, ugov polls and other special interest groups. Members of the party work in these institutions gradually becoming experts in any chosen field of polities – international relation, economy, migration etc.

In fact the last three Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom worked inside the party or in organizations affiliated to the parties – Mr. Tony Blair, Mr. Gordon Brown and Mr. Dave Cameron. Most of their cabinet colleagues did likewise: it was from inside the party that they sought the constituencies that elected them and eventually propelled them to power. This training is almost like a political boot camp – the end of which saw the good ones in parliament and knowledgeable about the issues and portfolios given to them.

Our system has no such apprenticeship, no studies about policies beyond electioneering slogans. Many of our ministers suffer from abysmal ignorance of the subject they are supposed to minister over; the parties are not a reservoir of relevant knowledge. The result has been plain to see. The United States has set up two policy institutes in Nigeria – one for the Democratic Party, the other for the Republican. Their influence on Nigeria political parties have been minimal if not negative ( every now and again members of our national and state legislatives junket round the world to study how democracy and other institutions work). They seem to learn little.

The political parties in Nigeria seem to have little or no dialogue with any interest group. The APC neither as a party or Government engaged the various strata that make up the economy. They sometimes need or read the Press: but how about the businessmen, the professionals, the workers, the youth, the trade unions? Do they dialogue with the International Oil Companies (IOCs), and other members of the gas and oil fraternity? The President needs to know what really is going on. I have a feeling that he does not and that those around him prevent true dialogue between ruler and the ruled.

The result of the shortcomings listed above is plain to see – governments without focus, without planning, learning on the job etc.

We must reduce the cost of running political parties, the cost of conducting elections by INEC and contesting for office by the political parties; we must train and groom a leadership and knowledgeable cadre, we must make political office a lot less attractive financially, we must encourage participation and accountability and transparency at all levels of political life.

Dr. Patrick Cole, a former ambassador, wrote from Lagos