With the lifting of ban on campaigns for presidential and National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday acknowledged that it was in a dilemma over the tracking of candidates who exceed the stipulated amount fixed for campaign spending.

The commission however disclosed that it has put machinery in place to help monitor spending by candidates

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, stated that while electoral commission was bent on monitoring campaign spending by politicians, it can only do so after the act of over spending has been committed.

He noted that unlike 2011 general election, a specific unit had been created by the commission to monitor candidates’ spending in the 2015 election.

According to section 91 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, the maximum expenses to be incurred by a candidate in a presidential election shall be N1billion while the governorship is N200 million.

The Electoral Act also placed a campaign ceiling of N40million and N20million for senatorial and House of Representatives candidates respectively. N10million is the fixed amount for election expenses in the state assembly and chairmanship election in an area council.

Accordingly, sanctions for candidate who knowingly flaunts these campaign spending limits are as follows: For presidential election its N1million fine or 12 months imprisonment or both.

Governorship, N800,000 or nine months or both. 600,000 or imprisonment for six months would be slammed on a senatorial candidate who goes against the Electoral Act while 500,000 or five months imprisonment will be slammed on a House of Representatives candidate who defaults on the campaign spending.

But explaining the situation to some journalists, Idowu, said: “The commission has put structures in place to track expenditure. That structure did not exist in 2011. And we could not do much in that regard. Now we have been able to put structure in place to track expenditure and we are going to continue to do that. But the situation now is that we can’t know whether a person has over spent until he or she has spent it.

“However, what the law anticipates is that we have put a ceiling on spending and we will now monitor it to know whether we can make a case on it.”

“INEC can only work within the framework of the law. You are absolutely right that INEC does not have the capacity to handle the magnitude of electoral offences. That is given and we have said it over and again. That is why we have always called for election tribunal. But if the law says INEC should do something even within the constraints, INEC will do what is possible within those constraints.

“INEC will do what it has to do within the framework of the law as it exists at the present. For instance, the law says we should publish the audited yearly accounts of the political parties and that is what we have always done. We audit and publish, as the law says we should do. So after we publish it, what next? There are places where you have offences and you don’t have sanctions stated.”