60% of election funds spent on logistics, personnel allowances – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says 60 percent of election funds are spent on logistics and personnel allowances.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, made this known Friday while responding to questions at an interactive session with the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) in Lagos.

Yakubu, however, said Nigeria’s elections are not the most expensive, adding that elections conducted in Ghana, Kenya and Guinea-Bissau were more expensive if the voter population was considered per capita in relation to the cost.

“The cost in Nigeria, I think, is nine dollars per head (N4,500) as against what happens in other countries. Ours is not even the most expensive,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“The cost of elections in Nigeria in 2023 is N305 billion of the national budget of over N17 trillion. The cost of elections is just 1.8 percent — not even up to two percent of the national budget.

“If we remove the technology cost, 60 percent of the cost of elections in Nigeria is spent on logistics and personnel allowances.”

According to him, there are several reasons responsible for the large amount of funds used in conducting elections in Nigeria.

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“In France, the ballot paper is like an A4 sheet of paper, because it is unthinkable that anybody in France will snatch the ballot paper,” he said.

“But here in Nigeria, we print ballots papers in currency quality and we entrust them to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“The ballot papers will now be moved with all the protocols and security according to the movement of the national currency, just to protect the process.

“This is not going to be done cheaply. So, we pay for lack of trust in the system.”

The chairman added that if trust in the electoral process is built upon, “the cost of elections will come down considerably”.