There is no doubt that the Electioneering campaign is pivotal to every political party in Nigeria even across the World. It has proved vital and indispensable for it determines who holds the winning card at the polling booth and takes the mantle of leadership for the next four years. Political Analysts had over the years laid credence to its significance in the political space that it works like a magic formula. As much as this political gimmick is yielding results for all the candidates and political parties respectively, it should also be noted that it undermines the good governance spirit in the country thereby leaving the downtrodden masses at the mercy of hunger, retrogression, unemployment, frustration, economic somersault, disloyalty to their country and most of all crimes.
For this reason, a legal framework governing political campaign finance was established in Nigeria in an attempt to bridle the spending limit of all political parties during the election season that often breeds electioneering campaigns. In spite of this initiative, monetization of the people’s will is still prevalent, likewise vote-buying gaining momentum in the face of level playing ground, justice and fairness.
Being part of her mandates, the Justice, Development and Peace Makers’ Centre (JDPMC) through the support from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) had since 2018 been on the mission of why this nation’s malady must STOP while normalcy should reign supreme and the act of fair-play practice must be equally embraced by all and sundry especially political actors and gladiators.
JDPMC time and again chose the 2020 Edo Gubernatorial election to access the level of compliance of this adaptation of electoral recommended practice by training 42 Campaign Finance monitors in Edo State and deploying them to track Campaign Finance expenditures of Four (4) Selected Political parties in the state.
The political parties are AllProgressive Congress (APC), Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Young Peoples’ Party (YPP) and LabourParty. The field monitors used the Parallel Expense Tracking (PET) Method and mobile technology called JICAFIMO Mobile APP to collect and collate data on party expenditures. Below link is a newsletter that shows the findings of the field officers, kindly click on it to avail yourself of the information therein.
JDPMC_CAMPAIGN FINANCE TRACKING
