Political Parties Says No to Withdrawal Limits, Insists it Will Hurt Election Funding

All the major political parties vying for Nigeria’s presidential position have said the new withdrawal limits introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would hurt campaign funding for the 2023 general elections.

This was coming a week after Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, announced that cash withdrawal at all financial channels has been capped at N20,000 per day and N100,000 per week for individuals while corporate organisations withdrawals were limited to N100,000 a day and N500,000 a week.

The CBN boss had explained that the policy was instituted to ensure more currency remains within the banking system, instead of having the majority of funds outside the system.

He puts the total amount of funds outside the banking system at N2.7 trillion out of the N3.2 trillion currency in circulation.

However, despite the reason for introducing a cashless policy, political parties have said it will strangulate the political process.

Chief Dele Momodu, the Director, Strategic Communications, National Election Management Committee of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, who commented on the policy during an interview with one of the leading media houses in Nigeria, said “if enforced, the policy will strangulate the political process, not the PDP alone.”

He said, “In 2014/2015, I am sure if (President) Buhari had no access to funding, he would never have been the President of Nigeria. There are people who are making contributions to the political parties and some parties have set up structures to receive support from people. How then will they be able to access the fund if they are saying you cannot withdraw more than N100, 000 a week?’’ he asked

“I read somewhere that the CBN said the policy would not be rigid but why make the policy in the first place if it is not going to be rigid?” he queried.

Accordingly, the National Chairman of the Africa Democratic Congress, Chief Ralph Nwosu, noted that paying the party’s agents in rural areas might be a challenge during the general elections.

He added, ‘’How do you expect the ADC candidate to have the cash to do the things he wants to do and how do you think that this is the best time for such an undertaking?

‘’We have almost 200,000 agents that we must pay and 80 per cent of them live in rural areas. Is it that N2,000 or N5,000 that you pay them that you would transfer to each of them? How many of them have such a facility? So it’s completely inconsiderate of them.”