Political Parties budget money to bribe security, INEC – Jega

KEY political heavy weights on Monday opened the eyes of the citizenry to the underhand dealings that characterized Nigerian democracy, painting pictures of bribery, power abuse and eagerness to breach the rules.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said that political parties in the country budgeted money with which to bribe security agents and officials of the electoral body during elections.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said party manifestoes were printed for the purpose of electioneering and that such manifestoes were thrown away immediately after election, while Senate President David Mark and the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, frowned at the nature of ‘lobbying’ in the country.

They all spoke in Abuja at the opening of a two-day Round table Conference with the theme, “Party Politics in Nigeria and Lobbying, the Lobbyist and the Legislature.”

The event, organised by the national Institute for Legislative Studies, was attended by the majority of the officials of the registered political parties in the country. 

 Obasanjo chaired one of the sessions.

Jega described budgeting money to bribe INEC and security agents as sad, adding that it was against the tenets of democracy.

Jega said the attempt to bribe security agencies and officials of the commission was one of the various ways through which political parties tried to undermine democracy in the country.

He said, “Political parties budget funds with which to bribe security agencies and INEC officials during elections.

“Of course, this is being resisted but we have to stop all this in our electoral process.

“There is a terrible lack of civility with which the parties relate to one another or the stakeholders.

“Many political parties also budget money for litigation and, therefore, look for cases to spend the money on.”

He also said some political parties were in the habit of submitting names of those who did not win primaries or those that did not even take part in primaries at all.

Jega also listed another way through which political parties cut corners to include submission of the names of incompetent candidates for elections and later ask those candidates to withdraw.

“But there was one candidate that refused to withdraw and the political party forged a letter that he had agreed to withdraw,” Jega said.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega,

    

He, said there was nothing the electoral body could do even when it was aware of the forgery because of the provisions in the Electoral Act, which disallowed it from interfering in the internal running of political parties.

Jega said financial and procedural accountability in many of the political parties, was deficient and they hardly obeyed their own constitutions but looked for shortcuts in complying with electoral laws.

Obasanjo, however, decried the non-implementation of party manifestoes by political parties.

He said it was obvious that many of the political parties merely used their manifestoes to campaign.

Obasanjo said, “What I have come to understand in Nigeria is that manifestoes are prepared for campaigns and after the campaigns, they are thrown away.

“How then can we hold parties and elected leaders to their parties and electoral promises and manifestoes? Or if they do not have manifestoes, what do we hold them onto?

“No human institution or human organisation would endure for too long without discipline.

“Elections must be free, fair and transparent to the extent that the results would be acceptable to all.”

Obasanjo said pressure was mounted on him to rig out the former Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, during his quest to get a second term but that he resisted the pressure because Shekarau won by a simple majority.

He turned to Shekarau, who was also at the forum, and said, “I thank Shekarau for what happened to him in Kano.

“What he did not know which he may know today, is that he won that election with a narrow margin, and if I had yielded to pressure, maybe he would be saying another thing today.

“You didn’t know that. Somebody brought a resident commissioner to you and somebody also wanted me to call that commissioner and I refused to.”

Before Obasanjo spoke, the former governor had said that there was a pressure on him to ask the unnamed REC to work in his favour during the governorship election, but he refused.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

But the National Chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Chief Victor Umeh, told our correspondent that the admittance of Obasanjo of being under pressure to rig out the governor showed that his government was involved in election manipulation.

Umeh said, “That the former President admitted that he was under pressure to rig out Shekarau was an indication that his government rigged elections.

At the event, Mark and Ihedioha described lobbying targeted at legislators as the act of attempting to influence legislation and resolutions made by parliament.

Mark said, “It is unfortunate that the term, ‘lobbying,’ has come to acquire a pejorative connotation, despite its many inherent and positive benefits. This is due largely to the abuse to which it is often liable.

“Even here in our country, it has been turned mostly into a very aggressive and predatory endeavour to extract personal favours, mostly political appointments and money, from political office holders.

“This form of lobbying is clearly unethical.”

Ihedioha said the effort made by the 1999-2007 Sessions of the National Assembly to introduce legislation to guide lobbing as a profession was shot down.

He said the bill was thrown out in the House of Representatives, “basically on the grounds that lobbying meant bribery and corruption.”