By Fidelis Mac-Leva, Saawua Terzungwe, Abbas Jimoh & Baba Martins
Six days to the presidential and National Assembly elections, political parties are struggling to get cash for expenditure, including the payment of allowances to agents on election day, Daily Trust on Sunday reports.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had also raised concerns that the cashless and currency swap policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will pose a challenge to the successful conduct of the general elections.
The commission said if nothing was done to address the cash crunch caused by the policies, it would find it difficult to deploy staff and materials for the elections as most of the services required cash to obtain.
The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Yahaya Bello, said this in Abuja on Tuesday at the North-Central Stakeholders Roundtable on the 2023 election, organised by the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA).
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Bello said, “Sincerely, the challenge to this election as we are going about now in the FCT and by and large, I believe all over the country, is the cash policy. Because we have already enumerated and made our position clear to the authorities – the CBN, the federal government and what have you— exactly how we conduct elections.
“On the night of Friday (the day before the election) in the FCT, we have more than 12, 000 ad-hoc staff we are going to give cash. None of them will receive a cheque or accept a transfer. I am talking about FCT (12,000) that will require about N5,000 cash on Friday night.
“Also, those who are going to transport our men, materials and security to the polling units will need cash to do that. In Kano, we have 44 local governments, and they are going to move to many polling units.”
Cash hurdles on election day
Daily Trust on Sunday reports that like the INEC, the major political parties – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC), the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and the Labour Party (LP), may also be struggling for cash to be expended on election day for logistics, payment of agents and others.
The expenditure, it was gathered, would start with the mobilisation of state coordinators and party agents, among others.
A party source said that for the two agents to be deployed to 176,846 polling units across the country, the candidates are expected to spend not less than N3.5billion if each of the agents would be given N10,000 allowance.
In addition to the polling units, parties would also need cash to mobilise top-shots, including commissioners, ministers, senators, members of the House of Representatives, state assembly members and appointees to deliver their areas.
With the new trend of vote-buying, especially as witnessed in recently conducted off-season elections, the election day spending for candidates could be much higher.
How we‘ll cope with cash crunch
Faced with the reality of the cash crunch, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that the political parties have devised strategies to take care of the situation on election day.
Apart from mobilising their members to come to terms with the situation, the parties are trying to use alternative means, such as electronic money transfer, as well as Point of Sale (POS) channels to settle their polling agents and other ad-hoc staff on election day.
The ruling APC said the scarcity of cash would affect its operations on election day, but added that it would go into the polls the way it comes.
The APC national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, in a telephone chat said that apart from political parties, families would equally need cash to get foodstuff that would sustain them from the beginning to the end of the elections because there would be no movement on the election day.
Morka said, “Those who are managing this, maybe they know better, but as far as I am concerned, yes, our party needs cash, but in the absence of cash, we will do the election the way we see it.
“Whatever the outcome is, maybe someday, posterity will document what is going on and those who played roles. I don’t know what the CBN has in mind.
“This will affect the operations of political parties. Have you ever heard of a country in the world where elections are held without cash? There is no such country on earth.
“But now, there is no cash and the POS does not work, transfer does not work; electronic payment system is completely dysfunctional and we don’t have cash.”
The Peoples Democratic Party said that in view of the cash crunch they would make use of alternative platforms to make sure they conduct the exercise seamlessly.
The PDP deputy national youth leader, Timothy Osadolor said, “On our part, we are ready to conduct the election. Regarding paying our agents, they do have accounts and it can be paid into their accounts. Those fighting that the policy be reversed do not mean well for the country.
“Let us conduct this election without cash, politicians need to show their popularity, go and meet the people, not induce them with money,” he said.
On his part, the national publicity secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Ambassador Rufus Aiyenigba, said, “In the face of the present naira crunch affecting everyone and every organisation in the country, payment for the services of polling agents and staff on election duty in the forthcoming general elections will be based on other existing structures.
“It will take the already established form and process, which we have long been operating before the current currency crisis. The SDP is firmly established structurally and administratively to have seamless operations at all times,” Aiyenigba said.
Also speaking, the national chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr Victor Ike Oye, said, “When we get to the bridge we will cross it. Let us not focus on the negative side. I believe that between now and next week, something better will happen.”
Similarly, the head of media, Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council of the Labour Party (LP), Diran Onifade, said the situation would not affect them since they were not planning under-table payment.
“Since we are not planning to make any under-the-table payment, we will have no problem complying with the government policy,” Onifade said.
In a separate interview, the LP Presidential Campaign Committee (LPPCC) spokesman, Dr Yunusa Tanko, said paying the agents through their bank accounts would make it easy to trace what each party is spending and to also determine those who spend above the lawful threshold in the electoral act.
“So, for us (LP) we can pay through transfer and directly into the agents’ account, which is easily accounted for. However, the majority of our agents are volunteers and we may not need money as such,” Tanko said.
Similarly, the national publicity secretary of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Comrade Egbeola Wale Martins, said they were exploring alternative means to pay their agents on election day.
“Paying our agents will not be a problem as we look to explore other alternative virtual means of payment available to us.
“However, the Buhari-led APC should be called to order as economic policies are meant to better the lives of citizens and not further impoverish the same. It is obvious that the cash swap policy that has led to the scarcity of the new naira notes is ill-timed and politicised, and is bound to fail.
“This should also serve as a signal to the electorate to vote wisely so that we don’t have a repeat of the insensitive leadership of the past seven and a half years,” Martins said.
Our approach is different – NNPP
The national chairman of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Professor Rufai Ahmed Alkali, said the party would devise a means to navigate the elections.
Alkali said the NNPP would handle the matter differently.
He said, “The issue of dealing with agents is a party matter, and I think we are handling it internally. I am not going to say anything on how we are going about it.”
“Everybody is affected. Nigerians also have to adjust and adapt, but we feel that no matter what happens, this is avoidable.”
He said although the policy was engineered to stop vote-buying by some people, the NNPP would not follow the line of the two main political parties.
“We are in the middle, on compassionate ground. Everything should be done so that Nigerians do not suffer. Also, giving the fact that the fuel crisis has been biting, these two issues can undermine credible elections.
“But the approach from the two main political parties is different. The APC is condemning it because they want to use the old money, PDP is not condemning because maybe they already have the new money,” he said.
