The Center for Social Justice has alleged that both the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC, have violated the provisions of the 2010 Electoral Act on campaign funding.
Eze Onyekpere, Lead Director of the organisation, on Monday, said both parties have so far spent at least N4.97bn on publicity, to sell their presidential candidates, President Goodluck Jonathan, PDP and Mohammadu Buhari, APC.
The Electoral Act fixed Presidential campaign expenditure at a maximum sum of N1 billion. According to the law, any candidate who spends above the stipulated sum attracts a fine of N1m or 12 months jail terms or even both.
“Although, declining oil prices contributed to Nigeria’s deteriorating macro-economic fundamentals, the coincidence of campaign spending and the acceleration of the deterioration brings to the fore the inextricable link between election spending and the health of the economy.
“With the attention shifted from governance and a lot of expenditure on campaigns, the state of the economy in terms of depreciating exchange rate, inflation and reduced economic growth are bound to occur,” Onyekpere said in the statement.
Onyekpere said investigation by the group revealed that between last December and February this year alone, the PDP has spent N3.55bn on publicity, while APC’s expenditure in the same period stood at N1.42 billion.
The details given by the group in Abuja shows that the PDP spent N1.05bn on print media campaigns while adverts in non-print media stood at N2.5 billion.
On the other hand, Onyekpere said APC spent N332.58 million in print, while other media campaign expenses gulped up to N1.09 billion.
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