BY both comparative advantage and conventional party politics, the
ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is supposed to be the most
buoyant of all political parties in Nigeria. One, by virtue of its
control of power at the centre, APC stands at a more vantage position
than other parties in terms of access to resources. Again, it controls
majority of elected representatives at the local, state and national
levels, including having 23 state governors in its fold. Also, as people
like to put their money where their mouth is, political patronage in
form of corporate gifts and donations in exchange for contracts has
always been a good source of funding for a ruling party.
But this
may not necessarily be so for the APC with its change mantra. Unlike
the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which had enormous
resources to flaunt around while it held sway at the centre, APC is as
much financially distressed as other parties in the country, Sunday Sun
has reliably learnt.
According to a close source to the
national secretariat who spoke with Sunday Sun on condition of
anonymity, APC is not in any way immune from the current financial
hardship facing the Nigerian economy contrary to the general impression
in the public. Due to the present economic recession, he said, the
party is having a difficult time managing its affairs both at the state
and national levels. President Muhammadu Buhari’s seeming obsession
with anti-corruption war is said to be partly responsible for the
financial crisis the leadership has had to grapple with since the new
administration came into power on May 29 last year.
By
conventional practice in Nigeria’s evolving multi-party democracy, huge
sums of money is needed by parties to provide offices, equipment,
staffing, campaign for political offices, congresses, conventions as
well as litigation fees, among other electoral processes. This makes it
imperative for political parties to go out of their way to source for
funds through such means as members’ subscription, subventions,
donations, gifts and grants by individuals as authorized by law.
However,
the disposition of the Buhari-led administration to sleazy source of
funding is said to have put the APC in a big dilemma. Sunday Sun
gathered that some of the party’s stalwarts recently provoked President
Buhari’s icy distemper when they approached him for approval of an
arrangement that would mandate contractors to give their widow’s might
to the national secretariat of the party to augment its already
depleted treasury. “I must be honest with you; all is not well within
the APC. Even as a ruling party, we find it difficult to maintain the
necessary structure that can sustain our presence at all levels.
Ordinarily, we are not supposed to be starving for fund since we control
majority of elected representatives at local, state and national
levels. But as you know, these are hard times for the state governors.
Many of them cannot pay salaries of workers. They owe backlog of
salaries. So, the subventions that are expected to come from the states
as a source of funding to sustain the party’s structure are not
forthcoming. And regrettably, President Buhari’s hard line position on
corruption is not helping matters. Not too long ago, some concerned
stakeholders approached the president to find an alternative source of
funding. The idea was to encourage contractors to pay some certain
percentage of their profit to the national secretariat of the party. But
President Buhari was so livid with anger that he sent them out of his
office. That is why there is peace of the graveyard in the party now.
Nobody is ready to rock the boat again,” he told Sunday Sun.
Lack
of adequate resources for effective mobilization is said to be
accountable for the woeful performance of APC in the recent rerun
elections in some states. Before the rerun elections, many people had
expected that the party would make a good showing in Cross River,
Bayelsa and Rivers states. But many of its candidates lost out to their
PDP counterparts.
There are palpable fears that the trend may mar
the future of the APC, if the issue of funding is not appropriately
addressed in time. “You know in an electoral contest, preparation for
another election starts almost immediately soon as one ends. Compared to
other climes, electoral contest is still a very expensive venture in
our present democracy. And that is why some of us are worried that
something urgent needs to be done to overcome the financial limitation
facing the party before we go into another major election,” the source
added.
Already, Edo and Ondo state governorship elections have
been scheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
to hold in September and November this year respectively. These two
elections are critical and strategic for both the APC and PDP. For the
PDP, which has been grandstanding, boasting that it would reclaim power
at the centre in 2019, the poll is certainly going to be a litmus test
for the strength of its supporters in the two states. In the same way,
the APC would need to prove that it is still a popular party to beat in
2019 and beyond.
President Buhari is wary of what could be the
implication of pursuing party financing in the way of the immediate past
administration of the PDP on his anti-corruption crusade. While the
PDP held sway at the centre, the constitution of the party allowed
elected and appointed public officers at all levels such as ministers,
commissioners, special advisers, ambassadors, and board chairmen at
federal level, among others, to contribute five percent of their basic
annual salary to fund the party.
Apart from that, individuals and
corporate organizations also made handsome contributions to the party
during major elections. For instance, a group of business people under
the aegis of Corporate Nigeria contributed over N2 billion to the
campaign funds of President Olusegun Obasanjo in contravention of
Section 38 Subsections 2 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act which
prohibits corporate bodies from making contributions to political
parties. The Act specifically in Section 38 says: “A company shall not
have or exercise power either directly or indirectly to make a donation
or gift of any of its property or funds to a political party or
political association, or for any political purpose and if any company,
in breach of this subsection makes any donation or gift of its property
to a political party or political association or for any political
purpose; the officers in default and any member who voted for the breach
shall be jointly and severally liable to refund to the company the sum
or value of the donation or gift and in addition , the company and
every such officer or member shall be guilty of an offence and liable
to a fine equal to the amount or value of the donation or gift.”
Sources
told Sunday Sun that President Buhari is strongly against such a sleazy
source of funding, making reference to an episode that played out in
his first military regime in 1984 when the civilian governor of the
defunct Bendel State, Ambrose Alli, was jailed for 100 years for
donating the sum of N983, 000 meant for a road project to his Party by
the military tribunal set up to try corrupt public officials.
Ahead
of Edo and Ondo election, Sunday Sun learnt, some concerned
stakeholders have been holding nocturnal meeting to find a way out of
the quagmire to avoid a disgraceful outing. In the same way, they are
also said to be making frantic effort to curtail the looming implosion
that may likely arise from the crisis of confidence among the various
cleavages that coagulated to form the APC.
http://sunnewsonline.com/state-of-the-parties-graveyard-peace-in-apc/
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