The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, a civil society group has asked the All Progressives Congress, APC and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to disclose their sources of funds for the 2015 election campaigns.
The group submitted freedom of information requests to the political parties.
In a statement signed by the Executive Director of the SERAP, Mr. Adetokunbo Mumuni on Tuesday, the group said “By virtue of Section 1 (1) of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2011, SERAP is entitled, as a right, to request or gain access to information being requested. Under the FoI Act, your party is under a binding legal obligation to provide the applicant with the information requested for, except as otherwise provided by the Act, within seven days after the application is received.”
The group has also condemned the lack of accountability in political offices.
The statement said, “They should also declare the total amounts that have been spent, the anticipated spending and the sources of any such spending, and the total contributions received by the presidential and governorship candidates and the sources of any such contributions.
“Nigerians have the right to know about spending by their political parties, especially the major parties with a strong possibility to assume government in the future. Citizens should be able to examine financial transactions of political parties and be certain that politicians are working for their voters, not their benefactors.
“We believe that without free and fair elections, there can be no democracy. However, elections are only one part of the democratic process, and a fair and effective electoral system must be founded in an adequate democratic infrastructure and responsibility of political leaders.
“Disclosing the spending and the sources would also contribute to promoting informed voting by citizens who will have all the necessary information they need to make informed choices.”