SERAP Wants INEC To Publish What Parties Are Allowed To Spend
Abuja · Sunday 23 August 2026
SERAP has asked INEC to publish political donation limits and party finance details ahead of the 2027 elections. Eleven outlets carried it. The request is modest and it goes to the weakest point in the entire Nigerian electoral system.
The rules exist
That is the part most people do not realise. The Electoral Act sets limits on what candidates may spend and on what individuals may donate. There is a legal framework. It has been there for years.
What has never existed is enforcement anybody can observe. Spending returns, where they are filed, are not published in a form a voter can read. Donations are not disclosed in anything close to real time. And the penalty for exceeding a limit arrives, if it arrives at all, long after the person has taken office.
| Element | Exists in law | Visible to a voter |
|---|---|---|
| Spending limits per office | Yes | Rarely quoted |
| Individual donation caps | Yes | No |
| Party finance returns | Yes | No |
| Real-time disclosure | No | No |
The gap SERAP is pointing at is between column two and column three.
Why publication alone would do work
Because the constraint on campaign spending in Nigeria has never been the law. It has been the absence of anybody able to say, with a document, that a specific limit was exceeded by a specific amount.
Publishing the limits at the start of a campaign creates a number that journalists, civil society and rival parties can measure against. It costs INEC almost nothing. It does not require new legislation. And it converts an abstract rule into something a person can hold up.
You cannot enforce a limit that nobody can quote.
The timing is the argument
The campaign opened on 19 August and runs 150 days to a vote on 16 January. Spending is happening now. Publishing the framework in December, when the money has already moved, would be an administrative gesture.
The APC published its campaign council on Saturday, a document listing hundreds of people across dozens of directorates. Every one of those directorates has a budget. Nobody outside the party knows what any of them are, and under the current arrangement nobody will.
Reporting: SERAP statement via Premium Times, Punch, Vanguard and Sahara Reporters.
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