“APC, PDP Spent N11.66billion on 2015 Election Campaigns” – CSO

A civil society organisation, Centre for Social Justice, CJS, has disclosed that the two major political parties in the country, All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, expended a staggering N11.6bn on the 2015 presidential election campaigns.

Lead Director, CSJ, Eze Onyekpere, gave the statistics while releasing a report on campaign finance and the use of state administrative resources in the 2015 presidential election.

He said out of the N11.66bn, PDP spent the highest amount with N8.75bn, representing 75 per cent, while APC spent N2.91bn on its presidential candidate.

Onyekpere, however, stated that the N11.6bn was the amount that could be empirically verified by the group, stressing that there were other expenses incurred in the course of the campaigns by the two political parties that could not be ascertained.

Giving a breakdown of the amount spent, he said PDP spent N1.28bn on campaigns and rallies while APC spent N671.06m.

For billboards, he said PDP spent N473.16 million, APC N190.38 million; while N532.1 million and N410 million was spent by the PDP and APC respectively on electronic media campaign.

Other campaign expenses are electronic media advertisement where PDP spent N3.98bn and APC N1.06bn; print media campaign which saw PDP spending N2.47bn and APC N579.6 million.

The amount spent by both parties, according to the group, was higher than the N1bn ceiling fixed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for presidential candidates.