Democracy is often described as the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yet in Nigeria's electoral reality, another force is increasingly shaping the democratic process: money.

The Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) report, Financing the Vote, is more than just another analysis; it is a wake-up call. Using the Parallel Expense Tracking method, KDI's monitors followed virtually all the visible naira spent in the 2025 Anambra governorship election from June to November.

The headline figure is not just campaign money; it is money that could fund primary healthcare and basic education. The report reveals a troubling truth: elections are becoming less about persuasion and more about financial power.

Here's what the numbers really reveal and why every Nigerian who cares about democracy should be worried.

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1. Three Parties Owned the Race; Everyone Else Was Filling the Ballot

Out of the 16 candidates and their parties on the ballot:

• APGA and its candidates spent ₦3.51 billion
• Labour Party and its candidates spent ₦2.38 billion
• APC and its candidates spent ₦1.96 billion

The remaining 13 parties and their candidates combined spent peanuts. Seven (7) candidates recorded ₦1.13 billion in cumulative spending, and the remaining six (6) candidates showed zero measurable spending.

This doesn't show competition; it exposes a structural problem. Elections may appear competitive on paper, but in practice, the unfair playing ground and unequal advantage, unregulated finance, and abuse of state resources pose a critical challenge for credible candidates to be visible.

When only a few players can afford these, the ballot becomes theatre and not a choice.

2. Serious Money, Zero Transparency

Equally troubling is the report's identification of a persistent gap between publicly known income sources and observed campaign spending. For several political actors, the funds publicly disclosed — such as nomination form sales or reported donations — could not plausibly explain the scale of campaign operations observed during the election.

For APGA, publicly declared income was:

• Nomination forms: ₦30 million
• Known and documented donations: ₦1.23 billion

Yet their observed campaign footprint was far bigger. APC? Only ₦350 million from form sales was traceable; there were no public donation records at all.

The report doesn't scream "corruption," but it doesn't need to. When spending massively outpaces known income, then something isn't balancing. This discrepancy highlights a serious transparency deficit. Financial opacity raises questions about potential influence, hidden obligations, and whether elected officials may later feel indebted to undisclosed sponsors.

3. The Rise of the "Third-Party Shadow"

Another critical finding is the growing role of third-party spending in elections. The report estimates that about 42% of tracked expenditures were linked to actors outside formal party campaign structures.

These actors include support groups, associations, and loosely organised political networks that spend money to promote candidates without being formally accountable under existing campaign finance rules.

This phenomenon creates a regulatory blind spot. The 2022 Electoral Act that governed the Anambra election did not clearly regulate third-party political spending, though it did regulate third-party donation. This created a system where significant financial influence can operate outside official disclosure frameworks. Such arrangements blur responsibility lines and make it difficult for regulators to determine whether legal spending limits are being respected.

4. Election Day Became "Cash Day"

This is the most disturbing part, and a revealing insight from the report is where money is ultimately deployed. Contrary to conventional assumptions, the most financially intense phase of the election is not the campaign period; it is election day itself.

For some campaigns, election-day mobilisation alone rivalled or exceeded everything spent in the preceding months. Agent payments, logistics, and "inducement-related exposure" — the polite academic term for what everyone calls vote buying — followed clear geographic patterns across local government areas.

The distribution of money in Nigerian elections does not appear to follow the logic of persuasion; it follows the logic of capture. The concentration of financial resources at the polling unit level, in the final hours before and during voting, suggests that for some actors, the decisive contest is not fought in the arena of ideas but in the mechanics of turnout and choice.

This pattern, if it holds across cycles and geographies, points to something worth examining carefully: that election-day spending may be where electoral outcomes are most directly shaped and where scrutiny is thinnest.

5. Disregard for Extant Laws

The 2022 Electoral Act that governed the Anambra elections, in Section 88(3), caps the expenses to be incurred by a governorship candidate at ₦1 billion. Yet the three leading candidates in the election exceeded the cap, with candidates from APGA and the Labour Party leading with a 1,164% and 202% increase, respectively. Such a flagrant affront to laws and guidelines weakens the legitimacy and supremacy of our laws. It therefore gives rise to subsequent and continuous abuse.

It is worth noting here that it is very difficult to operationally separate candidate and party spending.

Section 88(9) of the 2022 Act provides punitive measures of not more than one year imprisonment or a conviction fine of 1% of the capped amount, yet many such offenders go scot-free. And rather than prosecution, in the latest Electoral Act of 2026, the capped amount for the governorship election is now increased to ₦3 billion. The question now soliciting answers is whether this new benchmark will be enforced in subsequent elections — and will culprits be brought to book?

6. Democracy at Crossroads and Why Reforms Matter

The findings from Anambra are not isolated. Similar patterns have emerged in the 2024 elections in Edo and Ondo states, pointing out that political finance involves large campaign spending involving candidates, parties, support groups, and affiliated actors operating simultaneously.

The legal framework governing campaign finance still assumes a simpler model — one centered on individual candidates and party accounts — even with the recently signed 2026 Electoral Act.

Political finance reform is not a technical issue; it is a democratic necessity.

When campaign spending is opaque, citizens cannot judge whether elected officials serve public interests or financial patrons. When financial power determines electoral competitiveness, political participation becomes unequal. And when election-day spending becomes the decisive factor, the legitimacy of electoral outcomes is called into question.

Strengthening Nigeria's democracy will require clearer rules on third-party spending, real-time financial disclosure during election cycles, stronger monitoring of election-day expenditures, and improved enforcement of spending limits.

With the attendant increase in spending limits under the new law, the ultimate question confronting Nigeria is simple but fundamental: are elections contests of ideas or contests of money?