The clamour by political parties for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to take over the funding of their activities may have to wait until the constitution is amended. INEC chairman Professor Attahiru Jega said this much in a recent interaction with the media. He made it clear that the issue of funding political parties is a constitutional matter. Sections 225, 226 and 227 are clearly silent on that. He insisted that, until the National Assembly amends the Nigerian constitution to allow for funding of political parties, INEC would not be able to do anything about it.
Those pressurising INEC to fund the parties may be drawing from experiences in other countries such as the United States of America from where Nigeria borrowed its brand of democracy. In those countries, there is discipline as individuals and groups form parties based on very strong ideological framework and they go all out to talk to people and organisations who share their beliefs and passion and who, in turn, contribute financially to support their operations. When they field candidates in elections, they sell them to the electorate based on those beliefs, and, if the electorate buys them, all well and good. Otherwise, they move on with persistence and hope for a better luck next time.
The opposite is the case here where parties are seen as investments bereft of any ideological foundation. As such, there must be returns if they are to stay in business. This profit motive has consistently given rise to the godfather syndrome where an individual or group bankrolls the party and claims ownership. There was an instance during the Babangida administration when the government actually decreed and funded two parties — National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) — because it believed that was the way to do away with claims by an individual or group pretending to own a party. That experiment became a cesspool of corruption and ended as an unmitigated disaster. That may explain why the makers of the succeeding constitution that midwifed the current democratic dispensation decided to keep the idea of government financing the parties silent.
The suggestion that the government should consider wasting taxpayers’ money on politicians who will end up feathering their own nests when they get into office is decidedly objectionable. For one reason, it will not stop some power-hungry individuals from ganging up to hijack the process. Also, it will not restrain them from looting our collective patrimony for themselves and their generations yet unborn.
The status quo should be maintained: no public funds for political parties. It is bad enough that they will rip the public till open; it will be worse to imagine that we would have aided and abetted the crime.
