Ahead of 2019 general elections, a Civil Society Organisation; Good Governance Team (GGT) has disclosed that it has concluded plans to launch a tracking project to monitor early money and third party spending, misuse of state and administrative resources.
The group, in a statement signed Thursday in Abuja by its convener, Tunde Salman, said the project will run through the entire electoral cycle period for the 2019 general elections as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) beginning from the countdown date of February 16, 2018 to the end of election calendar in March/April 2019.
According to him, the project which is being powered by TSJ Consult, is opened for partnership and support of all other credible civil society organizations (CSOs), election management body, media, as well as development partners and donor agencies working to deepening electoral democracy in Nigeria.
The statement said: “The scandalous abuse of state financial resources in support of failed reelection bid of PDP Presidential candidate Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is too fresh in mind to reenact itself in the coming general elections in 2019. One of the good contributions the present administration can give for strengthening Nigeria’s growing electoral democracy is to support strict adhere to our extant campaign finance rules particularly as regards the abuse of SARs, third party finance, and hidden campaigns expenditure.
“Abuse of incumbency refers to the use of state resources to aid incumbent campaign for re-election. This occurs when an incumbent party or candidate takes advantage of government power and resources which are not available to challengers or opponents, or even deprives the challengers from using resources. Abuse of incumbency prevents fair elections by putting government resources that should be equally accessible to all candidates behind one party or incumbent.
“Therefore, Good Governance Team wishes to intimate all the election stakeholders in Nigeria, including Political Parties (and associations), INEC, CSOs, Media and general public of its launching of a tracking project dedicated to monitor early money, abuse of incumbency privileges, misuse of State and Administrative Resources, as well as Third Party Spending in the upcoming 2019 General Election cycle.”
