POLITICAL FINANCE AND 2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Political finance is an important issue when discussing the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. There is no doubt that the use of enormous sums of money played a significant role in who emerged as key players in the aftermath of the election. This stems from the use of big money in different primaries of big political parties, the exorbitant prices of expression of interest and nomination forms, as well as various political campaigns across the length and breadth of the country. The sources of most of these funds are shrouded in secrecy and were often discussed in hush tones. However, there is no doubt that public funds were dissipated on electoral matters, and of course, illicit funds cannot be ruled out. The perception is derivable from the fact that political power during the period in question was pursued with deadly seriousness. Everything humanly possible was done by the occupiers of office to retain their political offices at all costs while, preventing others from coming on board. There were several cases of vote buying, vote selling and vote trading by all political parties, as the whole political spectrum of the country was thrown into an orgy of political parties’ financial bazaar. The threshold of political finance stipulated by the electoral law books were wantonly disregarded and there were no concrete steps taken by the appropriate authorities to bring the electoral offenders to book. The use of big money altered the level playing field in favour of the biggest spenders and financially well-to-do political parties. It is imperative to underscore the fact that the research methodology adopted was the descriptive method and the theoretical framework used was clientelism, after which a conclusion was drawn and recommendations presented.