2023 Campaign Funding: INEC Chairman Orders Political Parties To Disclose Sources Of Funds

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has directed political parties participating in the forthcoming general elections to disclose the sources of their campaign funds and keep to the rules guiding campaign financing and spending limits

The INEC Chairman made this demand in an exclusive interview with Trust TV, scheduled to be aired on Monday, 3rd of October 2023.

Prof. Yakubu noted there are also limits for what individuals can contribute to campaign financing, as individuals can only make contributions subject to certain limits.

“The party also has its own limitations as to what it can spend including where the money is coming from and the responsibility for full disclosure for transparency. The limits are in the law actually.

“These are in the law and they must be obeyed and respected,” he said.

The INEC Chairman also reaffirmed that parties cannot receive financial contributions outside the shore of country, and that if there is any money received by any party from outside the country, such funds must be transferred to the commission.

On the security of its online and electronics systems, Prof. Yakubu assured that the commission would invest heavily on cybersecurity, adding that “Any organisation that operates an online platform is susceptible to hacking but our defense system is very robust. But I am sure you don’t expect me on national and international television to say exactly how we are going to defend our system but we are satisfied that our defence systems are robust.”

On the invalid registrants in the just concluded Continuous Voter Registrations, INEC boss said that the commission after every registration cleans up the data and that in cleaning up the data, it removes those who are not eligible to be registered under the law.

According to him, “Nigerians are not allowed to register more than once, so those who are engaged in multiple registrations we removed their data, so that was what we did. But the law requires also that once we do so, we should also throw the register open to Nigerians for claims and objections by citizens.

“And the law specifically requires the commission to publish the hard copies of the register in all the 8,809 wards nationwide, as well as 774 local government areas. Now the idea is for citizens to help INEC to further clean-up of the register.

“So, there will be two stages, we are about to complete the cleaning up of new registrants, we will add the data of fresh registrants that are eligible or valid to the existing register of 84m and then publish the entire register nationwide for citizens to help us clean it up further.”