The Independent National Electoral Commission on Friday said every candidate must declare their bank asset before the commencement of the 2023 general elections.
The Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, represented by a National Commissioner, Kunle Ajayi, stated this in Abuja during a policy roundtable conference on political campaign finance organised by the Electoral Forum,an organ of the Initiative for Research, Innovation and Advocacy Development with support from Macarthur Foundation.
The Electoral umpire therefore, promised to set up a committee to monitor election expenditure ahead of the elections.
Mahmoud said“As long as we have not notified anybody that the race to the 2023 general election has started, we are not unaware of what anybody is doing. We follow the law strictly.
“We have not officially declared notice for the 2023 general election, but when we so declare, we will put our monitoring committees to motion like the Central Bank of Nigeria, DSS, EFCC, the ICPC, (commercial) banks and other law enforcement agencies. We have that plan already.
“Every candidate must be made to declare his bank asset. That is where they draw out their money, so we will make them present their statement of account right from the onset.
“We will make it mandatory for them to turn in their bank statement so that if they say they are doing billboard and the account remains the same, then there is a problem.”
The INEC Boss also disclosed measures put in place by the commission to tackle vote buying during elections. One of which he said was that through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, commercial banks would be mandated to report all suspicious transactions ahead of the election adding that erring banks would be prosecuted.
Mahmoud also assured of reducing the influence of money during elections by providing a level playing field for rich and poor candidates
“We are going to establish finance monitoring teams and they will be among the electorate but they (politicians and political parties) won’t know.
“We are going to do it in a way that the influence of money will be reduced because we want to make the electoral field a level playing ground for both rich and poor candidates and electorates. Everybody will go on an equal economic level so that you won’t influence the voting pattern”.
