This book offers fresh insights on the political economy of political party financing in Nigeria since the return to civil rule on May 29, 1999 after close to three decades of military interregnum. Sule argues that elite-entrenched “corruption in political party financing has remained a major albatross to democratic consolidation. It has culminated in compromised electoral outcomes, bad governance, intra-party crisis and ruptured Nigeria’s international image.” Although the author notes that there exist sufficient laws to regulate political party financing in Nigeria, the challenge has been the inability of the electoral management body (EMB), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to enforce compliance.
Furthermore, through a comparative approach, the book examines the nature and dimensions of political party financing in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Sule tells a compelling story of how in some African countries such as South Africa, Gabon, and Seychelles, the government provides funds to political parties, whereas in many others, including Nigeria, private funding is the norm. He notes that in countries with public funding, the challenge has been about corruption, clientelism, and patrimonialism but in private-laden countries, the problems have been around issues of poor regulation, near-absence of monitoring, and nondisclosure of funds from private donors. He compares and contrasts the nature and patterns of party financing in Asia and Europe to show how differences in political culture and historical experiences have influenced discourses around party financing. In Asia—particularly Thailand, India, and Pakistan—he argues that political party financing has been mainly from wealthy private individuals and corporations with family or business ties to those in power. Although the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has been working assiduously to address the miasma of illicit party financing, the challenges of corruption, primordialism, and clientelism remain. In European countries such as France, UK, Sweden, Germany, and so on, there exist stronger instructions and legislation to curtail the corruption arising from political party financing. The author argues that unlike in Western democracies where strong institutional and legislative frameworks exist to support the EMBs to ensure compliance to party financing laws, in Nigeria the electoral umpire lacks the manpower and leadership support to monitor, investigate, sanction, and prosecute offenders. For instance, Nigeria’s electoral Act of 2006 empowered INEC to regulate political party financing but it lacked the manpower to monitor and ensure compliance. In this regard, further reforms were made leading to new Electoral Acts in 2010 and 2022. Yet, the challenge of corruption in party financing remains. Although the Electoral Acts specified how violators should be sanctioned, the outlined punishment for offenders is too insignificant to deter moneybags.
Through a thematic approach to data analysis of rich primary and secondary data, the book provides useful insights on the political history of Nigeria with specific reference to the historiography of political parties in Nigeria. It offers academic and policy suggestions on practical strategies for effective democratic consolidation through transparent and accountable political party management and financial regulations. The book is schematically divided into eleven inter-connected chapters. The author draws from elite theory to argue that because of the surge in human poverty, the political elites have weaponized poverty as party leaders and electorates are made to sell their votes to highest bidders. Since 1999, the funding sources of political parties have come from personal/private financing, godfathers, and donations usually through looted public funds. In sum, party financing remains dominated by godfathers, moneybags, political, and business elites who seek to promote patronage and clientelism.
The book also draws attention to other challenges facing Nigeria’s electoral process such as poor funding, logistics, violence, vote buying, postponement of elections, clientelism, and godfatherism. In fact, violence has remained a major feature of elections in Nigeria and the 2003 and 2007 elections were marred by irregularities due to intra- and inter-party conflicts linked to the influence of godfathers (60). The author conceptualizes money politics as the entrenched culture of vote buying in an electoral process whereby votes are “traded and bargained based on patron-broker-client relationships” and through the exploitation of the socioeconomic conditions of the electorate. Other aspects of this phenomenon include high cost of political party nomination forms, which tends to strategically and “systematically eliminate all poor and average Nigerians” from contesting for political offices. One limitation of the book is in terms of the unrealistic nature of one of its recommendations. It remains unclear how citizens can engineer or pressurize legislators who are also beneficiaries and perpetrators of illicit political party financing to enact electoral laws that will weaken and undermine their grip on party structures. The author was silent on what strategies could be adopted to achieve this goal.
In general, the book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on political party financing by illuminating the Nigerian experience. This book holds immense value to students and policymakers who want to understand the nature and patterns of political party financing in modern Nigeria. The bold recommendations which the author has adumbrated are important areas of policy advocacy for civil society actors and INEC committed to sustainable electoral reforms in Nigeria.
