Nigeria 2015: SERAP drags APC, PDP to court for undisclosed campaign expenses

For failing to disclose their planned expenditure and sources of funding, Nigeria’s two largest political parties have been charged to court.

The suit is coming over one month after both parties received a Freedom of Information, FOI, request, but declined to disclose their finances to a civic group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP. The group said it dispatched the FOI request to the the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu, and that of the All Progressives Congress, APC, John Odigie-Oyegun on November 18.

Dissatisfied that both parties refused to honour its request, SERAP has charged them to court. Between them, the APC and PDP govern 34 of Nigeria’s 36 states. The February 14, 2015 presidential election is also expected to be between the PDP’s candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, and APC’s Muhammadu Buhari.

In stating why it charged both parties to court, SERAP said “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.”