CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND THE VOTING PATTERN IN NIGERIA: THE NEXUS (A CASE STUDY OF ONDO STATE)

CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND THE VOTING PATTERN IN NIGERIA: THE NEXUS (A CASE STUDY OF ONDO STATE)

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
General Elections are usually conducted in the atmosphere of tension and crisis of insecurity and most critical is the case of campaign financing and the usual ethnic, regional and religious sentiments. Campaign financing has become an important issue in modern democracies in the quest ensuring transparency and discouraging corrupt practices in the contest for public elective office globally. This is because there are many cases in recent times worldwide of corruption scandals in the Campaign financing process. There is a global effort in curbing of excessive campaign spending through regulating of donation, maximum spending limit and increase public spending. The major sources of Campaign financing are identified as contributions, private funding, personal sources and abuse of state resources (Lawal 2015). Campaign financing is very essential in democracy and it is expected that, it the process should be transparent and in line with the regulations provided by laws of a given country. Failure to adhere to the rules leads to corruption and other illegal practices.
In Nigeria, there are set limits for elective offices of maximum campaign spending according to 2010 Electoral Act. All contestants are required to mandatory adhere to the rules strictly.(Verba 2005)
Unfortunately, in Nigeria, politicians used the process of Campaign financing to enrich themselves while the electorates also get influence in the process through cliental-patron relationship where national resources are shared according to who access power or have access to those in power. Public funds are looted in order to finance political campaign in which in return the winners loot directly from the public treasury to accumulate wealth and harbor influence on their patrons (Obazee 2014). The correlation between money and politics in Nigeria has impacted in corrupting the electoral process since violation of
electoral rules through excessive spending gives some contestants undue advantage over others. (Mohammed 2013)

CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND THE VOTING PATTERN IN NIGERIA: THE NEXUS (A CASE STUDY OF ONDO STATE)