Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has published the details of his campaign finances for the 2023 presidential election.
Femi Adeyeye, spokesperson of the party released the financial details in a statement on Tuesday.
“In line with the best campaign practice and the spirit of accountability as we hold dear in the African Action Congress (AAC), the Sowore Political Action Committee (SPAC) has released the final breakdown of the 2023 Presidential election campaign donations, sources of funding and expenditure”, Adeyeye said.
“Recall that the committee gave monthly updates during the campaign and this is not the first time the Committee will be releasing a breakdown such as this.
“In 2019, the AAC candidate also released a complete breakdown of campaign expenses, the first recorded in the history of electioneering campaign in Nigeria’s history. The Sowore Presidential campaign organization, then in a novel manner released detailed accounts of money received and spent, which were published on major dailies in the country.
Sowore’s campaign organisation received a total of N40,146,674.54 from donations and personal funds of the candidate.
Donations accounted for N38,341,674.53 while a sum of N1,805,000.00 was from the presidential candidate, Sowore.
The expenses breakdown showed a total of N38,388,546.03 were expended on ten items including, security, printing, media logistics, campaign actions, party activities, and subscription among others.
Adeyeye added human resources contributions that supported the campaign day and night could not be quantified.
“Asides monetary contribution, we can not quantify the human resources put into the campaign from Nigerians who supported us day and night. Those who stood their ground and gave their time to toeing the path of honour and integrity. We can not thank you all enough.
“The Campaign Organization also seizes this medium to challenge other Presidential candidates including the one who was sworn in, to release their campaign financials, that’s if any books were kept at all. We sincerely hope that those in particular who sought public donations during the campaign season will also show to Nigerians the donations they got from the campaign donors across Nigeria and beyond.
“We can’t have a clean leadership recruitment process in this country with people who shroud their campaign spending in secrecy. We believe that those who can’t keep books of campaign expenses and transparently account for the expenses incurred can’t run a country like Nigeria properly”.
The Electoral Act 2022 mandate political parties to submit a report of donations and the audited account to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) within three months after a particular election.
Section 90 (4) of the Act 2022 says “A political party sponsoring the election of a candidate shall, within three months after the announcement of the results of the election, file a report of the contributions made by individuals and entities to the Commission.” The third is the election expenses report. S.89 (3) of the Act says “Election expenses of a political party shall be submitted to the Commission in a separate audited return within six months after the election”.
