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Monday, March 9, 2015

GROUP BERATES PDP, APC OVER N4.9BN PUBLICITY FUND

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), alongside the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), were today lambasted by the Centre for Social Justice (CENSOJ) over what it termed the continuous violation of the Electoral Act as regards campaign financing.

The group's Lead Director, Eze Onyekpere, argued that both parties had so far spent N4.97bn on publicity, to market their presidential candidates.

Onyekpere insisted that the N4.97bn spent so far  on campaign for the presidential candidates of both political parties was a gross violation of the provisions of the Electoral Act.

According to him, "The Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) provides a ceiling on campaign expenditure of candidates.

"At the presidential level, it limits the candidates to spending not more than N1bn while it goes further to provide sanctions for spending above the ceiling.

"The sanction is a maximum fine of N1m or imprisonment of 12 months or both."

He said investigations by the group shows that
both parties had violated the provision and should be accordingly sanctioned.

Onyekpere posited that, "Although, declining oil prices contributed to Nigeria’s deteriorating macro-economic fundamentals, the coincidence of campaign spending and the acceleration of the deterioration brings to the fore the inextricable link between election spending and the health of the economy.

"With the attention shifted from governance and a lot of expenditure on campaigns, the state of the economy in terms of depreciating exchange rate, inflation and reduced economic growth are bound to occur.”

Eze consequently charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in collaboration with security agencies to caution both political parties.

Photo credit: dailymail

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