How much does it cost to win a Presidential election in Africa’s largest nation? Guesses vary wildly, some estimates reaching as high as $2bn.
With the 2023 elections expected to be keenly contested, the stakes will be high and so will be the spending. Ironically, Nigerian law, until last month, said the maximum amount to be spent by a Presidential candidate should not exceed N1bn ($2.4m) although it has now increased to N5bn ($12m).
“No Nigerian President in the last 20 years has spent less than $100m to be President. It is now upwards of $300m. I know this because I am an insider,” says Doyin Okupe, a former Presidential Spokesman who also plans to run for the Presidency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“But there is no Nigerian President who has through his sheer wealth alone put himself in office whether Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua or Goodluck Jonathan…if
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