The African Action Congress (AAC) presidential nominee, Omoyele Sowere, has released the final breakdown of his campaign donations and expenditures in the 2023 presidential elections.
The Sowore Political Action Committee (SPAC) released the details to Peoples Gazette on Tuesday, after previously publishing monthly updates on the campaign’s financial activities in what the party described as a demonstration of its strong commitment to accountability and adherence to best campaign practices.
The party, whose centre-left agenda elicits interest among Nigerian youths, received N38,388,546.03 in donations from supporters throughout the campaign, the disclosure said. Mr Sowore himself contributed N1,805,000.00 of his personal funds — bringing total donations to N40,193,546.03.
Logistics, media, security, subscriptions, printing, and party meetings were among the top items that drew campaign funds, the disclosure said, with N22,600,820.00 going into logistics. The party said it spent N5 million on party meetings and N2.3 million on security, while media received N2.5 million.
Femi Adeyeye, the principal spokesman for the AAC, said the disclosure underscored the party’s commitment to transparency and accountability. He admonished other political parties and candidates to promptly disclose their campaign finance and expenditure for the 2023 election.
Mr Sowore and the AAC were also the first to voluntarily publish their books following the 2019 presidential elections. Federal campaign finance laws only mandate political parties to disclose their expenses to the electoral office INEC, a requirement that even the major political parties rarely comply with or exercise secretly, if at all.
“We sincerely hope that those in particular who also sought public donations during the campaign season will also show Nigerians the donations they got from the campaign donors across Nigeria and beyond,” Mr Adeyeye said. “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” stated the party’s national publicity secretary,” the party spokesperson added.
Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress was declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election in February. The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar came second, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third in the exercise, whose outcome is currently being challenged at the election tribunal in Abuja. Mr Sowore was in ninth place.
The Gazette reached out but did not hear back from the major political parties, PDP, APC and Labour, about their timelines for disclosing their respective campaign donations and expenditures.
