Governorship Office Seekers Spend Up To N30bn On Primaries, Elections, Litigation — EFCC Chair

The executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has raised concerns over the enormous amount of money being spent by politicians seeking elective offices in Nigeria, revealing that governorship candidates spend between N20 billion and N30 billion from the primaries through post-election litigation.

Olukoyede made the disclosure on Wednesday while delivering the inaugural High-Level Guest Speakers’ Series organised by the Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies (CPSS), University of Ilorin, in Kwara State.

Speaking on the theme, “De-risking and Mobilising Critical Stakeholders for Peaceful and Credible 2027 Elections in Nigeria”, the EFCC boss said the huge financial burden associated with elections has continued to undermine the integrity of Nigeria’s democratic process.

According to him, an assessment conducted by the anti-graft agency late last year showed that the cost of contesting a governorship election, including party primaries, campaign activities, the general election and post-election tribunal cases, ranges between N20 billion and N30 billion.

“Sometime late last year, we took an assessment of how much a contestant for the office of a governor in Nigeria spends in the build-up to the election, during the primaries, during the election itself, and post-election tribunal issues and all of that, and we saw it to be between N20 billion and N30 billion,” he said.

Olukoyede warned that such staggering expenditures encourage corruption, as successful candidates often regard public office as an investment that must yield financial returns.

“If you spend that kind of money to get to an office, of course, everybody sees it as an investment, and that’s why we are here, to see what we can do to sanitise our electoral process and ensure that the process is not contaminated,” he stated.

“When the process is contaminated, you get contaminated leaders,” the EFCC chairman added.