In a commitment to support the election of the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, some Nigerians in the Diaspora have formed groups of committees to launch crowdfunding initiatives.
They plan to unveil in the coming days a crowdfunding portal with a target to raise $150 million from Obi’s supporters in the diaspora and N100 billion from those in Nigeria.
Credible sources report the Diaspora groups are targeting small amount in contributions to be gathered from supporters largely from the grassroots to help the LP set up more structures across the country and make the former Anambra State governor a formidable contender in the presidential race.
The campaigns for the presidential election, which holds February 25, 2023, will officially commence on September 28, 2022.
Obi, who was in California, yesterday, is currently on a foreign tour to meet to his supporters in Canada, Germany, London, Rome, and the United States, where it is expected he would raise a substantial amount of the funds needed for the election.
Crowdfunding is a financing method that raises money by soliciting small individual investments or contributions from a large number of people. Political crowdfunding is widely considered an acceptable medium for raising funding from grassroots supporters.
Crowdfunding, particularly online, speaks to much wider groups than a party’s usual support base, while minimising time and effort for both the party and donors. It also has the potential to enhance a sense of community between the party and its base.
Most countries have regulations for donations and related privacy and transparency issues. In many countries, parties are only required to report donations above a certain threshold, to encourage smaller donations, while allowing the monitoring of potentially risky larger donations in order to prevent money laundering, terrorism financing, as well as other illegal financial transactions. The funds are also subjected to taxation.
“The automated nature of crowdfunding can allow donors to divide donations into smaller amounts more easily, thus circumventing the reporting obligations that apply to donors (although this only applies to some countries),” the IDEA report stated.
The Labour Party presidential candidate also yesterday, said Nigerians in the diaspora could be effectively mobilised as true assets for the rapid development of the country, adding that the Nigerian diaspora can play a major role in helping the country transform its education sector.
Obi pledged that his administration, if elected, would have zero tolerance for corruption and cut cost of governance.
According to him, “Our total commitment to transparency and accountability in government business is the only credible way to achieve limited to zero corruption.
“Africa will remain the centrepiece of our foreign policy. We will improve Nigeria’s diplomatic sphere of influence via peacekeeping, trade, and investment initiatives. We will pursue aggressively modalities for raising the national Internet penetration, as well as increase contribution of ICT to overall economic growth to aid national development.
“We intend to lay special emphasis on critical infrastructure, especially power, to ensure a clear measurable increase of 200 per cent of today’s generation, transmission and distribution within the shortest time possible through public private partnership.
