***’We can’t be intimidated, our hearts, minds will be our billboards,’ says Amadi, APP Imo east senatorial candidate 

***Why we can’t stop states from imposing fees on campaigns – INEC

By Eze Nnadi 

Ahead of the 2027 generation election,  stakeholders have raised the alarm over the imposition of what they described as outrageous fees for the pasting and mounting of election campaign posters and billboards across Imo state by the state government.

The Imo State Government had in a release on September  18 set a revised fee structure for political campaign billboards and advertising permits ahead of the upcoming elections, drawing criticism from opposition parties. 

The revised document which was released by the State Signage and Outdoor Advertising agency, listed the charges for campaign to be paid by candidates for the various categories of the upcoming general election.

According to the agency, the payments included ₦1.3 million for councillorship candidates, ₦5.3 million for LGA chairmanship candidates, ₦30.35 million for State House of Assembly candidates, ₦45.55 million for House of Representatives candidates, ₦50.75 million for senatorial candidates, ₦61.25 million for governorship candidates and ₦77.25 million for presidential candidates.

Recall that Imo state governor has similarly announced date for the conduct of chairmanship and councilorshp elections across the 27 local government areas in the state 

The new fees, according to the agency, replaced the earlier announced one, which the majority opposition political parties and candidates had earlier opposed.

Reacting to the fees, the Action Peoples Party (APP) senatorial candidate for Imo East (Owerri Zone) in the 2027 elections,, Chima Matthew Amadi expressed concerns, even as he described the signage bill as heavy.

Amadi in a release he personally signed deplored the revised schedule of political advertising fees, saying that such action deserves the attention of every citizen who believes that democracy must remain an open contest of ideas rather than a privilege available only to those who can afford increasingly prohibitive administrative charges.

He noted that the new figures represent a substantial increase over the earlier fees  reported publicly this year, under which the total charge for a senatorial candidate, for example, was ₦5.75 million..

He said, “while the government has a legitimate responsibility to regulate outdoor advertising, protect public spaces and ensure orderly placement of campaign materials, as indeed, the law establishing IMSAA gives the agency powers over outdoor structures and signage.  But regulation must never become an instrument capable of pricing political participation and communication beyond the reach of legitimate candidates.”

Amadi maintained that the democratic concern is particularly serious where candidates seeking to challenge an incumbent administration must pay tens of millions of naira to an agency of the same state government before communicating through ordinary outdoor campaign materials.

“If these extraordinary charges are intended, directly or indirectly, to intimidate political opponents, restrict their visibility or make legitimate campaigning prohibitively expensive, they will achieve the opposite of their purpose. Democracy cannot be strengthened by erecting financial walls around political expression. Governments should welcome competition, defend a level political field and allow citizens to hear competing ideas before making their choice.

“There is an even more fundamental point that those in government should remember: the best political advertisement is performance.

“A government that has transformed the lives of its people does not need to fear the billboard of an opponent. Good roads advertise themselves. Functional hospitals advertise themselves. Quality schools advertise themselves. Jobs, security, prosperity and accountable government require no giant portraits to announce their existence. When citizens can see and feel the results of governance in their everyday lives, they become the most persuasive advertisement any administration could possibly have,” he stated.

“No amount of restriction on billboards can manufacture public approval where performance has failed to produce it,” he stressed, adding “no proliferation of government-sponsored publicity can substitute for the lived experiences of ordinary people. If the people of Imo State are satisfied with those governing them, they will say so at the ballot box. If they are not, making it extraordinarily expensive for alternative voices to advertise themselves will not change that verdict.”

Amadi added, “for us, therefore, this is not a cause for panic. We will appeal directly to the people

“If they make physical billboards prohibitively expensive, we will build our billboards in the hearts and minds of our people. We will go from community to community, village to village, market to market and household to household. We will speak about our ideas, our record, our vision and the future we believe is possible for Imo East and our state

“Our greatest campaign infrastructure will not be mounted on steel poles beside the highway. It will reside in the conviction of men and women who believe that government can work better.

“Ultimately, democracy belongs neither to a government agency nor to an incumbent political party. It belongs to the people. Their judgment cannot be taxed out of existence, and their desire for change, where it exists, cannot be removed by taking down a poster.

“Our hearts and minds will be our billboards. The people will decide,” he said.

Reacting to the development, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it lacks the constitutional powers to sanction state   governments imposing excessive fees on opposition parties erecting   campaign billboards ahead of the 2027 general election.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman Voter Education and Publicity, Mohammed Haruna, told journalists upon inquiry recently that the decision on the cost of such billboards was the prerogative of state and local governments, adding that there are no limits to what they can charge.

According to Haruna, “there’s not much INEC can do about parties putting up what seems to be prohibitive fees on erecting billboards in states where they rule.

“This is partly because signage for such billboards are the prerogatives of states and local governments and  there are no limits to what they can charge and therefore there are no penalties for over charging.

“Sadly, all the parties that are in power in the states are equally guilty. It is also partly because the law itself does not have prescriptions on how the private media must conduct themselves as it does for the public media.”