N100m for the Starting Line

BY MAHMUD JEGA

An American political scientist once wrote that “money is not everything in American politics but without it, you cannot get far from the starting line.” In Nigerian politics, damn it, you cannot even get near the starting line without money. Last week, the ruling All Progressives Congress [APC] announced that its presidential “expression of interest” and “nomination” forms will go for N30m and N70m each, a princely total of N100m. Governorship aspirants’ forms will cost N50m, senatorial election forms will cost N25m, House of Representatives and State Assembly forms will cost N10m and N2m respectively.

N100m is a lot of money in Nigeria. The president’s monthly salary is N2.5m, so after buying the form for N100m, assuming you succeed in winning the nomination and the main election, it will take you 40 months to retrieve the cost of your form alone. That’s 83% of your entire first term in office. Unless there is something to it that we don’t know, your gain is only 8 months’ salary for the whole tenure.

Chairman of the main opposition PDP Dr. Iorchia Ayu cried blue murder over the cost of APC forms, saying it indicated corruption and that anyone who bought a nomination form for that amount should be probed. Not that PDP is much cleaner in this matter. It has already been selling presidential nomination forms for N40m each, or 16 months of a president’s salary. I think those who come to political equity, must come with dry hands.
Why do these forms cost so much? Afterall, they don’t guarantee that you will get the party’s ticket, since many other people also bought the forms at the same amount. The ostensible reason is in order to prune down the number of aspirants. As at last week, 15 people were known to have declared their intention to seek APC’s presidential ticket. That number did not include two potentially big masquerades, including a former president and the man in charge of the country’s money.

If you ask me, 15 or even 17 is not too big a number that must be pruned down, except that if the party does not prescribe some difficult hurdles, the number of aspirants could swell to 100 or more. We experienced this in Nigeria from 2003 when the courts forced INEC to remove difficult hurdles and set a very low bar for party registration. Within a few years we had nearly 100 registered political parties. Unless some stringent measures are put in place, many frivolous aspirants would go and collect the forms and the ballot paper could become unduly elongated. Since APC has chosen the indirect mode of primaries and since it also ruled out consensus option in choosing its flagbearers, it has to watch the length of the ballot paper, lest some semi-literate delegates get confused.
Now, the measures that could be put in place to prune the number of aspirants need not be financial. It could be stipulated, for example, that an aspirant’s nomination form must be endorsed by a certain number of registered party members, or by a certain number of senators, state or national party officers etc. If you want to make things really difficult, you can say the form must be endorsed by two state governors, four serving ministers, Senate President or House Speaker, ten senators, 20 House of Reps members, a former elected President etc. Just like when the courts sometimes demand that a bail applicant must get a First Class traditional ruler, a Bishop or the Chief Imam of a Friday mosque to stand as his surety. When Nnamdi Kanu said his religion was Judaism, the High Court demanded a Rabbi as one of his sureties!

The other, less advertised reason is that sale of nomination forms is the party’s best opportunity to make a lot of money, which should last it through the next election and well beyond, until the 2027 election season comes round. This will make party officers less likely to go cap in hand to governors and presidents for money. Although the major parties claim to have millions of members, 99% of them do not pay any membership fees. Instead, they expect to be paid by the party and its candidates for pasting posters on the streets, shouting themselves hoarse at rallies, engaging in street brawls and for serving as agents at polling stations.

The Electoral Act has pegged the money that a presidential candidate can spend in his entire campaign at N5 billion. 2% of this amount has been gulped by the nomination form alone, when the runner in a long distance race is still standing on the starting line, waiting for the pistol to be fired.

Outrageous though most Nigerians think these nomination form fees are, they are really less than the “I” of introduction in terms of political spending. Although every major aspirant claims that some associates or supporters bought the forms for him, that is a political stunt in order to prove alleged popularity.  In Nigeria, you see a group of kobo less young men and women presenting a N100m form which they say they bought for an aspirant. Anyone who pays N100m just to get on the starting line of the presidential race, must have lined up billions in order to run the distance. This race is a sprint, middle distance, long distance, hurdles, obstacle race and marathon all rolled into one.

An aspirant must go round the country making “consultations,” by air, since kidnappers lurk along most highways, in a private or chartered plane, in order to impress voters. In truth, political consultation is a one-way monologue. At no state party office, traditional ruler’s palace, elder statesman’s house or newspaper newsroom will anyone tell you not to run during your round of consultation. All you will hear are royal blessings, conferment of traditional titles, clerics’ prayers, cheering party members and fawning editors. Just remember to “drop something” at each place.  

Consultation is for starters. An aspirant must then build a nationwide campaign structure. Since the fight for delegates at the nominating convention [as NPN once described it in 1978] is state by state, a state campaign team’s most important task is how to woo delegates over to its aspirant’s corner. This is not easy in so far as most state delegates tend to vote en bloc, usually at the say so of a governor or a powerful godfather. The main trick therefore is to get the governor or godfather to support your aspirant, and you have got the whole state’s delegates. There is a Hausa saying that even if you are handsome, you must still take bath. Despite the godfather’s support, an aspirant’s campaign team must stick up posters, do much publicity, arrange for their aspirant’s visit and follow the delegates home with souvenirs.

Governorship and senatorial aspirants, especially, must do a lot of sharing of “palliatives,” such as during the Ramadan, Sallah, Easter and Christmas seasons. It is clear violation of the Electoral Act but somehow, we see whole truckloads of essenco being dispatched to various towns and local governments, allegedly “to cushion the effects of the harsh economic situation” in the country.

Then there is what an aspirant’s campaign workers call “tools of work.” These include vehicles, motorcycles, posters, souvenirs and a lot of money. An aspirant must be careful lest campaign workers confuse primary election with general election. In the primaries an aspirant is only after delegates but campaign workers will direct him to shower gifts on clerics, elders, royal fathers and assorted party members who are not convention delegates.
Then there is the tricky element called media and publicity. In a large country of 37 states and 200 million people, most people’s knowledge of a presidential aspirant is through the media, traditional and social, hence the importance of publicity. There is also a lot of demarketing and media ambush in politics. A single carefully placed social media rumour could wreck many years of hard political effort and leave an aspirant gasping for breath.

And then, when the convention finally comes around, a serious aspirant must arrange hotel accommodation for delegates. A really powerful presidential or governorship aspirant could spirit away the delegates of a whole state or local government, days or weeks to the convention, and hide them in a secret location, beyond the reach of his rivals. At the convention city, aspirants and their agents run around from one state delegation to another, making promises and dishing out money. This is quite often a wild goose chase because Nigerian convention delegates are very greedy and they collect money from every aspirant, even though they already knew before they left their state who they will vote for, at the behest of a godfather.

Paying N100m for forms is just to enable you to stand at the race’s starting line.  It is “I” of introduction in political spending, the N5billion limit in the Electoral Act be damned.