(L-R) Mr. Kasim Bashir of the National Pension Commission and Emeka Onuora, head, communications unit of Pencom at the commission's interactive session with the press in Lagos.

The presidential election held last Saturday has been adjudged as the most expensive when compared with the last three presidential elections held in the country between 1999 and 2011. Though our efforts to get the campaign budgets of the major political parties for the presidential election was futile, our investigations can reveal that the cost of the 2011 presidential election was about four times the cost of 1999’s, three times that of 2003 and more than twice the cost of 2007’s.
There are also very strong indications that based on the fallout from the death of the former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the controversial  zoning debate and the rancorous PDP primaries, Goodluck Jonathan was bound to spend more money in his process of  building bridges and calming frayed nerves since the last nine months.
The four major political parties whose candidates were considered to have possessed good chances of making it to Aso Rock were said to have spent heavily on advertisements, gratifications and logistics. Cash gifts, some of the time in foreign currencies, accounted for a chunk of the cost as various groups of people and associations were paid cash during visits and campaigns. This was believed to be responsible for the high demand for forex from the black market since this year. Forex traders noted that many buyers of forex, believed to be agents of politicians, were ever ready to snap any volume of forex in the market each day. Consequently, the Naira has continued to slide from the stable rate of N150:$1 that ruled the market since 2009 to about N158 up to last Saturday. Among the four very prominent political parties - PDP, ACN, CPC and ANPP - publicity spending was heaviest as they fought to secure deep reach across the country using the newspapers, radio, television, bill boards and posters. Spending on television and newspaper advertisements is reported to be the heaviest as each party ran series of campaign messages for several days preceding last Saturday’s election.
The PDP is believed to have spent much more money than the rest because of the financial resources at its disposal. There are strong indications that top corporate bodies, especially those operating in the oil and gas sector, were mandated to make special financial gifts to the PDP which ran into several millions of naira. Much of the donations were classified as top secret by the party and the companies involved. Unlike in the previous presidential elections where luncheons and dinners were held as ways of raising funds, the 2011 presidential candidates hardly solicited for funds using such platforms, yet they had a lot of money to spend. There were indications that the parties de-emphasized the dependence on individual donors as they looked up to the corporate bodies for more support.
Because the PDP candidate is the incumbent president, it is said that he got the highest patronage from the corporate world and individuals. This accounted for the huge expenditure his team ran especially in publicity.