Founder of Centre for Values in Leadership, and one of the leaders of Labour Party (LP), Professor Pat Utomi, yesterday, revealed that the crowdfunding portals Nigerians in the Diaspora planned to launch for the presidential candidate of LP, Mr. Peter Obi, would be unveiled next week. Utomi revealed this last night during an interview on Channels Television.
But some senior lawyers have expressed differing views on the legality of the election funding process.gists9ja had exclusively reported that in a bid to bolster his chances in the 2023 presidential election, Nigerians in the diaspora had formed groups to launch crowdfunding initiatives for Obi. They planned to unveil crowdfunding portals with a target to raise $150 million from Obi’s supporters in the diaspora and N100 billion from those in Nigeria, gists9ja reliably gathered.
A dependable source close to one of Obi’s supporters leading the process had said they were targeting small amounts in contributions from supporters largely at the grassroots to help the LP set up more structures across the country and make the former Anambra State governor a formidable contender in the presidential race.
Crowdfunding is an online financing method that raises money by soliciting small individual investments or contributions from a large number of people. Political crowdfunding is widely considered an acceptable medium for raising funding from grassroots supporters. However, as with political party funding, generally, political parties that engage in crowdfunding have to take the legal framework into account. Most countries, including Nigeria, have regulations for donations and related privacy and transparency issues.
However, Utomi, a former presidential candidate, said he also got support from the diaspora when he contested for the presidency.Utomi, who is currently in the US with Obi, explained, “When the time is right, the diaspora will give money; they have always given money to campaigns. I ran for president before and I got support from the diaspora in 2006 and 2007 and also in 2011.
“When the time is right, we are going to obviously solicit from Nigerians across the board. We are setting up portals where people can give money.“The portals would be up next week or so and eventually we would solicit for funds from the diaspora. But right now, we are on a sensitisation tour about what makes democracy work. Right now, Nigeria’s democracy is not working because of the transaction cost that is involved and the trade-off that has to be made.”
Reminded that Section 225 of the Nigerian constitution as well as Section 85 of the amended Electoral Act forbad the sourcing of fund for campaign from abroad, Utomi said, “I am completely aware of what the law says. If we open a portal and say Nigerians who want to support can pay into it, are you saying Nigerians abroad can’t go to the portal and contribute a dollar, after you have prevented them from voting?
“Most African countries allow their diaspora to vote – Ghana, Kenya, and others. In Nigeria, they can’t vote and a lot of Nigerians are excluded from their democracy and now you say they can’t even give N100 to a candidate.“If there is a law that opposes opening a portal to raise campaign fund, that law is fundamentally flawed and does not deserve the name of law. What we are doing is that we are building a movement that would change Nigeria.”
The former presidential candidate denied the story making the rounds that Obi was charging fees for his engagements with Nigerians in the diaspora, saying, “We are not involved in the fees, if at all there is any.”Utomi also denied any rift between him and Obi or any LP official over campaign funds, describing the story as “fake news and that is absolutely nonsense.”He said, “No such thing ever happened. We have never had a conversation around money in any shape or form.”
Meanwhile, some leading lawyers expressed concerns about the legality of the decision of the presidential candidate of LP to inaugurate the Diaspora Committee to raise $150 million from Nigerians in the diaspora and N100 billion from his supporters in Nigeria.In separate interviews with media reporters, some Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) argued that the law prohibited LP from retaining any contributions made for its election expenses from the diaspora.
Sections 224-225 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, and Sections 85-88 of the Electoral Act, 2022, stipulate how much a political party can spend on presidential campaigns and where it can source funds.While Section 225(4) of the constitution requires that funds or other assets be remitted or sent to a political party from outside Nigeria shall be paid over or transferred to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) within 21 days, Section 88(2) of the Electoral Act limits spending by a presidential candidate to N5 billion.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, National Chairman of LP, Mr. Julius Abure, had constituted an 11-man Diaspora Committee at the national headquarters of the party in Abuja to organise fund-raising activities, among others, for the party’s presidential campaign.Section 225 of the 1999 Constitution prohibits all political parties and their candidates from holding or possessing funds or other assets outside Nigeria or being entitled to retain funds or assets remitted or sent to it from outside Nigeria.
Section 225(2) stipulates that every political party “shall submit to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a detailed annual statement and analysis of its sources of funds and other assets together with a similar statement of its expenditure in such form as the commission may require.”Section 85(1) of the Electoral Act states that any political party that holds or possesses, “Any fund outside Nigeria in contravention of Section 225 (3) (a) of the constitution, commits an offence and shall on conviction forfeit the funds or assets purchased with such funds to the commission and in addition may be liable to a fine of at least N5,000,000.”
The section further stipulates that any political party that retains any fund or other asset “remitted to it from outside Nigeria in contravention of section 225 (3) (a) of the constitution commits an offence and shall on conviction forfeit the funds or assets to the commission and in addition, may be liable to a fine of at least N5, 000,000.”
Reacting to LP’s plan to raise campaign funds from Nigerians living abroad, a human rights lawyer, Dr. Mike Ozekhome, argued that no political party shall be entitled to retain or keep funds sent to it from abroad, but shall, instead, transfer such funds to the INEC within 21 days of receiving such money.He explained that the political party “is also obligated under this section to afford the INEC such information on the sources of the funds, their legitimacy, the individual or group donors, and how much was contributed by each individual or entity.
“This therefore will permit the commission to pierce the veil of the diasporans’ crowdfunding to determine those actually behind the funds, and determine their legitimacy, or if they contravene the Money Laundering Act and other anti-corruption laws. Be very sure that the EFCC and ICPC will come snooping around.”
Ozekhome, however, noted that all hope “is not lost, as the election expenses to be incurred by a political party for the management or the conduct of an election shall be determined by the commission in consultation with the political parties.
