•Demand for 0.5% of budget to fund political parties is outrageous
A bizarre demand was made by the political parties at a workshop on the “Role and Responsibilities of Political Party Agents on Election Day”, which drew participants from registered political parties in the country, on August 4. The demand was for 0.5 percent of the nation’s annual budget to allow them “function effectively”. Making the demand at the three-day Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in collaboration with the Democratic Governance for Development Project (DGD) the Chairman, Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), Dr. Tanko Yunusa, called on the National Assembly to set aside 0.5 percent of annual budget to fund the registered political parties.
We know the issue of funding of political parties has always remained contentious, and rightly so. Without doubt, political parties, like most other things in life, require funding to be able to play their role in society effectively. Part of the reasons advanced by proponents of government funding of political parties is to ensure that no party is denied the opportunity of marketing itself on account of its inability to raise funds. Moreover, they believe that funding from government would prevent the situation where money bags would hijack the parties. A third reason, which is no less important, is the fear of some external bodies being the sponsors of political parties in the country. This has its implications for the polity.
Perhaps these explain why our governments in the past funded the political parties. Indeed, the 1979 Constitution specifically provided for government funding of the political parties. The Babangida administration even went a step further by not only making funds available for the two political parties that it decreed into existence, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC), it also built the party secretariats.
However, such a position would be difficult to sustain today. Indeed, since the introduction of free largesse for any group of politicians who “formed” political parties, the number of political parties in Nigeria has grown significantly to 50. This has only been pruned to about 26, with some of them operating from barbers’ shops under fake party officials with dubious spread in the country, just to collect party funding after which they fizzle out before elections. Many of them just make noise in the media. It has been such a massive fraud! Those in support of the existence of mushroom parties argue that government funding would enable all viable and unviable parties to propagate their ideas.
But we are yet to see which ideals have been propagated and how effectively they have performed, with many of these parties usually scoring between zero and a limit of one digit in ward elections and an annoying woeful performance at the local government and state levels. Many of them have not a single candidate either in the state assemblies or National Assembly to justify being called political parties.
Those who want to float political parties must have been sure of their capability to adequately fund the parties through their members’ contributions because the members must buy into their political parties.
Happily enough, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to fund political parties, whether registered or unregistered. So, let every political party take care of its finances without being a burden to the national purse. It is important to remind those calling for funding of political parties which are only on paper that we already have enough drain pipes in the country, mostly through corruption of various descriptions. Calling for government funding of political parties in order to appropriate funds into private pockets without anything to show in terms of good results at any election is an unwholesome addition to our drain pipes.
We don’t need more of this criminal wastage of public funds that could have been put to more productive use. What we need to do is monitor the expenses of the political parties to ensure they do not go beyond tolerable limits within the purse of their respective members.
