2023 Campaign: INEC Set to Track, Monitor Bank Accounts of Politicians, Parties
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said it will track and monitor bank accounts of politicians and political parties in a bid to track the sources of funds for their campaigns.
To this end, the commission has said it will set up teams to monitor election spending ahead of the elections.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, chairman, INEC , who stated this at a policy round-table conference on political campaign finance organised by The Electoral Forum in Abuja yesterday, also said the electoral umpire would also monitor the movement of money on election days to help tackle vote-buying at polling units.
Represented by Prof. Ajayi Kunle, who is INEC’s National Commissioner in-charge of party monitoring committee, Mahmood said through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, commercial banks would be mandated to report all suspicious transactions ahead of the election while threatening to prosecute any bank that failed to cooperate.
Mahmood said, “As long as we have not notified anybody that the race to the 2023 general election has started, we are not unaware of what anybody is doing. We follow the law strictly.
“We have not officially declared notice for the 2023 general elections, but when we so declare, we will put our monitoring committees to motion like the central banks, DSS,EFCC, ICPC, the (commercial) banks and other law enforcement agencies. We have that plan already.
“Every candidate must be made to declare his bank asset. That is where they draw out their money so we will make them to present their statement of account right from the onset. We will make it mandatory for them to turn in their bank statement so that if they say they are doing billboard and the account remains the same, then there is a problem.”
On the issue of vote buying, the INEC Chairman said, “We are going to establish finance monitoring teams and they will be among the electorate but they (politicians and political parties) won’t know. We are going to do it in a way that the influence of money will be reduced, because we want to make the electoral field a level playing ground for both rich and poor candidates and electorates. Everybody will be on equal level so that you won’t influence the voting pattern.”
He stated that besides the Electoral Act, the constitution empowers INEC to also make any other regulations that will assist its efficiency. The law, the Electoral Act empowers INEC to make other regulations.
Earlier, Engr. Yabagi Sani, national chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council, (IPAC), called for a strict enforcement of the regulations on election funding so as to prevent the monetisation of the electoral process and improve the level of trust between electorates and political party candidates.
