The Federal government of Nigeria has spent a total of four hundred and forty-four billion naira (N444.5 billion) to conduct the country’s last three general elections, but altogether wasted over N255 billion due to low voter turnout recorded in each of the elections, Dataphyte’s review of the election expenses revealed.
In the last two elections alone, the country wasted over 62% of elections funds due to the low turnout of registered voters.
Every four years, Nigerians go to the polls to elect representatives into various political offices. In carrying out this exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) puts different plans in place to ensure the success of the elections in line with the Constitution and Electoral Acts. Amongst other things, the INEC prepares their budget and submit it to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.
While a lot of factors are considered in planning the election, Samson Itodo noted that in Nigeria, the law compels the electoral Commission to use the voter register, that is, the number of people who have registered for an election, as a basis for election planning, instead of the figures of those who merely collected their Permanent Voters Card (PVC).
In 2011, the INEC recorded 73.5 million registered voters. The election budget for that year was then based on an average cost of N1,893 or $9 per voter. This amounted to N139 billion.
For the 2015 elections, 116.3 billion was budgeted at the rate of N1,691 or $8.5 per voter for the 68.9 million citizens who had registered prior to the election funding stage.
The highest number of registered voters preceded the last general elections in 2019. The electoral commission recorded 84 million registered voters and budgeted N2,249 or $6.24 per voter. This cost the country N189.2.
A look at the Average Cost per Registered Voter Index (ACRVI) as noted in the 2019 general election report showed that the money Nigeria spent is well within the internationally accepted ranges, which placed the cost per voter in established and stable democracies at the rate of $1 to $3; transitional democracies at $4 to $8, and post-conflict and transition democracies from $9.
When the figures are looked up with the number of people who actually turned out to vote in the last three general elections, data showed that low voter turnout has cost the country over N255 billion.
In fact, except for the 2011 elections, the money wasted in the other two elections was more than the actual cost, going by the number of people who eventually turned out to vote on election day.
An earlier report by Dataphyte noted the low level of electoral participation in Nigeria’s general elections since 1999. The country’s voter turnout in 2019 was the lowest in Africa, despite the continuous increase in the number of registered voters.
In his article titled “Why Nigerians don’t vote”, Tobiloba underscored widespread malpractice, electoral violence, and the people’s felt disillusion with successive governments, as some of the reasons for the low voter turnout in Nigeria. According to him, these factors discourage even the most ardent believers in our democracy.
In the same vein, an election observer who spoke to Al Jazeera in 2019 noted that voters, especially young people, feel betrayed by the electoral commission. They expressed the belief that their votes in the last elections did not count, and don’t trust the system enough to come out to vote again.
Jahdiel feels the same way about this too. “I wanted to vote in the 2019 elections but I ended up not going to the polls because my mum told me that my vote would not count because she heard that the elections were already being rigged”, says the 22 years old Lagos resident who waited for years to cast his vote for the first time.
It was a similar experience for Amaka who got her PVC in 2014 but always feared coming out on election days because of fear of violence which is reported to have claimed over 3,900 lives in past elections. “I see voting as my right as a citizen but because of the violence that happens during almost every election period, I have not been able to exercise this right because of fear”.
While these factors show the level of mistrust of the electoral political process, on one hand, it also reveals how much goes to waste in every election cycle due to the low level of turnout.
The INEC started its continuous voters’ registration on June 28, 2021. This ongoing exercise is expected to increase the number of registered voters. This in turn could lead to an increase in the budget for the 2023 general elections, since INEC uses the number of registered voters for election logistics planning and budgeting. But this may not guarantee an increase in turnout, going by the trend in the past three federal elections.
The INEC has fixed February 18, 2023, as the day for the next general elections. To prevent another situation of huge resources going into waste as a result of lower voter turnout, the country may need to adopt workable measures to ensure more participation.
Abdulrazaq Alkali, the executive director for the organisation for community civic engagement (OCCEN) in an advocacy video advised political parties in Nigeria to encourage their party members and citizens to come out to vote come during coming elections.