As Nigeria prepares to elect a president and parliament on March 28, at stake for most politicians is the power to dispense and receive cash and patronage rather than competing ideologies.
According to Bloomberg estimates, whoever wins the presidency has a critical say in dispensing about $70 billion a year in state revenue, more than two-thirds of which comes from oil and gas exports.
The agency is sure that with annual salaries and benefits of as much as $2 million a year, Nigeria’s lawmakers earn more than four times Barack Obama’s salary as US president.
Control
Jibrin Ibrahim, the director of the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development says: “There’s no country in the world that has that kind of remuneration for its lawmakers. Money plays such a huge role and the political process is very expensive, making it for the richest and not the best. Essentially, the godfathers are the ones that control the parties and determine candidates.”
Both Jonathan and Buhari have pledged to fight corruption and make the petroleum industry more transparent. However, Transparency International ranked Nigeria 136th out of 174 countries assessed in its 2014 Corruption Perception Index.
It should be also noted that the former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi was suspended by Jonathan last year after he alleged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had not remitted about $20 billion in oil revenue to the government.
Power
Jideofor Adibe, a political science lecturer at Nassarawa State University says: “Anyone who has state power controls everything. The group that produces the president can reward itself and punish the others. You can make a billionaire out of an ordinary man overnight.”
Gozie Agbakoba, who lost his bid to return to the House of Representatives in 2011 for the Action Congress of Nigeria states that candidates use funds for their publicity campaigns as well as to influence “opinion leaders” and potential voters.
Agbakoba said: “I lost because I didn’t share money. It’s difficult to win an election in Nigeria without providing inducements to voters, be it rice, other gifts or cash.”
Allocation
The source continues with the point that each level of government shares in the oil revenue, with the national government receiving 52.7%, the states 26.7% and local councils 20.6%.
According to National Bureau of Statistics data, of the 36 states, only Lagos, which generates 75% of its own revenue, could survive without the monthly cash allocations from the central government by trimming spending or selling bonds.
Since more than 70% of the federal budget is spent on recurrent expenses, such as the salaries and benefits of about a million public officials, there is little left for capital investments in infrastructure, health and education.
Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Abuja-based Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre says:“Many people who would’ve been entrepreneurs in business or industry seek political office “as a much quicker way to make money”.
Election
Clement Nwankwo also added :“With the majority of the population poor and without education, it’s difficult for citizens to understand the role of the elected official. They measure candidates by how much they pay.”
About 68 million people are registered to vote. The vote is being held at a time when cash is especially scarce, with the price of crude having declined more than half since June, falling below budget projections, Bloomberg notes.
With ideology less important than the battle to control resources, elections can sometimes be no-holds-barred battles with candidates and parties employing armed thugs to bludgeon supporters of opponents, snatch ballots and rig results.
Bloomberg says : “In 2011, about 800 people were killed and at least 75,000 forced to flee their homes after Jonathan’s victory was announced.”
