By Nebukadineze Adiele
As long as Nigerians, wherever they reside, remain dishonest over matters of Nigeria, that country will never see progress. Using prevarications, distortions, misleading suggestions, etc. to evading the truth is as pernicious to Nigeria as is lying categorically or brazenly stealing the resources of the nation state.
Rotimi Ogunsuyi, in his poser below, was misleading and prevaricating enough that those who are not politically savvy would view him as a non-partisan statesman who dealt with facts, even though he isn’t and didn’t. Rotimi is a Tinubu supporter who is joining the falsehood spreading, that Peter Obi has violated the electoral law and should be disqualified from running for president, even though there is no provision for such a remedy for candidates who actually violated the electoral law.
Rotimi Ogunsuyi’s questions imply that he agrees that Peter Obi has violated the electoral law by eliciting foreign donation. In showing his disavowal of Obi’s alleged violation of the electoral, Ogunsuyi touts his knowledge of restrictions on foreign campaign contributions by all countries, especially the US. Let us see if Ogunsuyi is a non-partisan statesman or Yoroboid tribalist supporting Bola Tinubu in disguise — there is nothing with anyone’s choosing to supporting Tinubu as long as folks are honest with their support.
First, Peter Obi has not violated any electoral law. The electoral law and the constitutional section that Tinubuphiles are referencing apply to political parties (not going to go deep into it until those making this argument embarrass themselves by bringing up the sections).
Second, Peter Obi did not solicit foreign contributions to his campaign, he merely sought funding for his presidential run from Nigerians resident abroad. He sought it through his, let’s call it a political action committee (PAC) — the OBIdents, not through Labor Party per se. No law in Nigeria forbids this; we did it for Buhari in all of his past presidential runs through the Buhari Media Organization and in 2014/15 through the Buhari Support Group.
Third, in the US that Ogunsuyi brags of knowing its electoral law, I doubt that he knows enough about such law, else he would not have been categorical in asserting that “the issue of campaign contributions, especially from abroad is tightly controlled”. US citizen abroad and green Card holders can contribute to political campaigns from wherever they reside.
Federal law prohibits contributions and expenditures solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any election — federal, state or local. This prohibition includes contributions made to political committees.
https://www.fppc.ca.gov/content/dam/fppc/NS-
Documents/TAD/Campaign%20Manuals/Manual_3/Manual_3_Ch_4_Contribution_Restrictions.pdf
However, since the Chief Justice Rehnquist led-SCOTUS Citizens United decision (one of his last sticking it to the nation before dying), Social Welfare Organizations have been exempt from disclosing sources of their funding, so they accept money from corporations and persons whether foreign or domestic, as long as 50% of their work is expended outside of politics; they can in turn donate to Super PACs, which directly support specific candidates, and those Super PACs are not required by law to report who donated to the Social Welfare Organizations that had donated to them. This situation removed the absoluteness that Ogunsuyi placed on foreign financial contributions to campaigns, that is why Democrats have been seeking constitutional amendment for over a decade to overriding Citizens United without success, because Republicans won’t budge, and Democrats don’t have the votes.
At some point, Nigerians on these forums, if not Nigerians everywhere, should start acting like educated people who have lived in fairly functioning polities, instead of being dishonest and misleading irredeemable Bantus. To have lived and schooled in this country for decades but still not know how the society politically functions is disgraceful, except to the educated Nigerian. Rotimi Ogunsuyi’s utterance on this subject matter should embarrass him if this is the much he knows about the US. Regrettably, I think that he knows better than this, he was just being a Yoroba tribalist, so he staked shaming his knowledge and education by making this dishonest and ignorant treatise
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