Nigeria is one of the most populous countries in the world and the largest in Africa, with a population of approximately one hundred and twenty million people. Over three decades of military rule distorted social values and undermined democratic institutions in Nigeria. Also, the oil boom of the 1970s introduced increased cash flow that served to deepen rent-seeking behavior in the country especially in the absence of a political culture that promotes and supports transparency and accountability. The result has been the pervasiveness of corruption in all spheres of public and private lives. This trend is also encouraged by lack of social and economic empowerment for the majority of the people who also are largely excluded from participating in the political process and have no means to hold political leaders and their administrations accountable for their decisions and actions. The 1999 General Elections led to the handover from military to civilian rule in May 1999. The political transition that started in 1999 advanced to its “second phase” with the 2003 elections which represented the critical hurdle for democracy in Nigeria. Until the April 2003 elections the country was generally believed never to have successfully negotiated a handoff from one civilian, elected government to the next.1 But the success of the 2003 elections could only mark a new degree of security from military intervention in politics rather than the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. The 2003 elections produced accepted winners and a new government was installed. But Nigeria’s democratic institutions are largely weak and undeveloped. Arguably the democratic system in Nigeria is still in its infancy, and forces are always at work that could undermine the foundations of a new democracy. This is the context in which the measure of success recorded in Nigeria’s political transition mainly provides the challenges ahead in the task towards consolidation of democracy. One of the challenges is ensuring transparency in the electoral process. The journey to civil rule after the military incursion of 1983 dates back to the mid1980s. In his 1986 Budget Speech, President Ibrahim Babangida announced the setting up of the Political Bureau to review Nigeria’s political history and identify a basic philosophy of government for Nigeria. The inauguration of the Political Bureau was openly welcomed by many Nigerians, and so was its profound analysis of Nigerian Political Economy. According to the Report of the Political Bureau on the national debate on the political future of Nigeria, Nigerians among other things expressed concerns about the administration and funding of Political Parties especially the seemingly freedom of limitations on Political Parties with respect to Party Funding during the 197983 elections. The return of the military in 1983 and the series of Political Transition Programmes by successive administrations did not significantly change the Political Culture of corruption and lack of transparency in Nigerian politics. The broad commitment of the present administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to governance reform, evident in the enactment of anti-graft laws and policies, is indicative of new policy consciousness and official perception of the problem of corruption. The Obasanjo administration set up a High-powered Technical Committee to review the restructuring of governance at the local government level. The committee was to, among other things, examine the problem of inefficiency and high cost of governance in the country, with a view to reducing costs and wastes at the three tiers of government. The committee was required to examine the high cost of Election Campaigns in the country and consider, among other options, the desirability of Political Parties, rather than individual office seekers, canvassing for votes in elections. Again President Obasanjo, in an address at the INEC-Civil Society Forum Seminar on 27th November 2003, lamented at the dangers associated with uncontrolled use of money during elections: His words: With so much resources being deployed to capture elective offices, it is not difficult to see the correlation between politics and the potential for high level corruption. The greatest losers are the ordinary people, those voters whose faith and investment in the system are hijacked and subverted because money, not their will, is made the determining factor in elections. Can we not move from politics of money and materialism to politics of ideas, issues and development?
President Obasanjo, at the same forum, examined the cost of conducting elections in Nigeria thus: “Even more worrisome, however, is the total absence of any controls on spending by candidates and parties towards elections. I have said that we prepare for elections as if we are going to war, and l can state without hesitation, drawing from my previous life, that the parties and candidates together spent during the last elections, more than would have been needed to fight a successful war. The will of the people cannot find expression and flourish in the face of so much money directed solely at achieving victory. Elective offices become mere commodities to be purchased by the highest bidder, and those who literally invest merely see it as an avenue to recoup and make profits. Politics becomes business, and the business of politics becomes merely to divert public funds from the crying needs of our people for real development in their lives.”
The relationship between money and politics is a powerful one with implications for democracy, especially in new democracies. Political party finance has been identified as a source of corruption in several countries. Political finance laws and regulation, through which political parties and candidates for political office declare their funding sources, are among the main instruments. Recent history has witnessed the pooling together of resources all over the world into a network of global awareness against unregulated use of money in politics. The critical forces in this consciousness mobilization include mass mobilization on global scale, capacity building for civil society organizations and support for electoral reform programs by bilateral and multilateral donors and development partners. All around the world there is increasing pressure for the regulation of private funding to political parties. In the US, the McCain-Feingold Bill was passed and in UK the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act was passed in 1997 after a series of allegations of corruption. In South Africa the demand for regulation is growing. At African regional level the AU Convention on Combating and Preventing Corruption includes a clause on the importance of regulating private funding and calls states to do so. As Nigeria derives more strength from the global current and the new policy consciousness against corruption is institutionalized via the creation of agencies and commissions, more attention need to be paid to how to regulate political party funding. The links between party financing and corruption are so important that to ignore party financing is simply to open wide the door for corruption. Looking into Nigerian political history one realizes that there is much that need to be done in this regard.
Source: INEC
No comments:
Post a Comment