by James Sambo

Following the lifting of bans on election campaigns, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has taken measures to track campaign expenses incurred by political parties.

Going by the electoral timetable released by INEC, presidential and National Assembly aspirants of political parties are allowed to commence campaign from 16 November, while the ban on campaign by governorship and state House of Assembly aspirants is expected to be lifted on November 30.

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, disemminated the development on Monday, 17 November, in Abuja while speaking with journalists, saying that the electoral body said it will sanction presidential aspirants that spend above N1billion on campaign.

“According to section 91 of the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended, the maximum expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1 billion; for governorship, it is N200 million and the act also stipulated sanctions for candidate who flaunted the campaign spending limits. The sanction for presidential election is N1 million or 12 months imprisonment or both and for governor, N800,000 or nine months or both.”

Idowu said that the commission now had a department to monitor spending of candidates in the 2015 elections, adding that the department was functional and was in full capacity.

“That structure did not exist in 2011 and we could not do much in that regard. Now we have been able to put structure in place to track expenditure and we are going to be doing that. The situation now is that we can only know whether a person has over spent until he or she has spent it. You cannot stop people from spending until the person has spent.”

“What the law anticipates is that we have put ceiling on spending and we will now monitor to know whether we can make a case about it.”

Furthermore, Idowu harped on the need for political parties to adhere to election expenses as stipulated by the Electoral Act.

“The act also placed a campaign ceiling of N40 million and N20 million for senatorial and House of Representatives candidates respectively. It also fixed amount for election expenses in the state assembly and chairmanship election for an area council at N10 million.”

“While the sum of N600,000 or six months imprisonment is stipulated for a senatorial candidate, the sum of N500,000 or five months imprisonment is also stipulated for a House of Representatives candidate who defaults on the campaign spending.”

Kolapo Olapoju