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As the outrage at the postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections continues, experts now admit that the country has lost about $5 billion in terms of financial transactions and wastages. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) had stated that the postponement of the election by the INEC had cost the nation not less than $1.2 billion due to the disruption of activities across the states. That figure now seems to have been a conservative estimate as the negative effects of the postponement on the electoral umpire and political parties; the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) becomes more evident.
In a conservative model analysis, SB Morgen (SBM) said the postponement of elections a few hours to the commencement of voting left stakeholders in the lurch, as all had committed financial resources to playing their roles as political parties, voters, electoral observers and the media. The company noted that INEC, which had committed resources to the elections, would further fund the withdrawal of sensitive materials already distributed and redistribute them this week when the elections would hold.
Using the publicly available data to paint a picture of what was lost in terms of funds as well as the opportunity cost forgone from the postponement; SBM noted that besides INEC, political parties and the nation’s GDP were hit. “There are 119,974 polling units across 8,809 wards in 774 local government areas. For political parties contesting, polling agents must be mobilized. “We estimated the number of polling agents per state, taking into cognizance political parties active in each state, and making an allowance for a few fringe parties fielding agents in some polling units, with total costs to polling agents to political parties at N42.7 billion.
“For example, cost of agents to man polling units for House of Representatives election amounted to N7.98 billion; the Senate, N6.18 billion; presidential, N3.6 billion; ward polling agents, N19.29 billion; and local government agents, N5.65 billion, totaling N42.7billion,” an SMB report stated. The document also showed that INEC lost an estimated N6.23 billion spent on the conduct of the postponed elections and what it will spend to manage the fallouts of the postponement. SBM noted that Nigeria’s GDP was $420 billion as at the end of 2018 and estimated the lost GDP from the various economic sectors, based on the National Bureau of Statistics data, at $531 million.
Traders at the adjudged largest market for information and communications technology (ICT) accessories and wares – the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, said the sudden postponement wiped off 10,500 daily business deals. An Abuja-based fiscal governance campaigner, Eze Onyekpere, identified four levels of costs and losses associated with the development, saying the public treasury became the first victim with budgeted funds that had been used by the electoral umpire, but which had been wasted. Corroborating the SBM, Onyekpere said the GDP also lost hundreds of billions in productivity to the political intrigues, together with individuals who had spent money to travel and would either spend money to travel again or be disenfranchised. “Our image in the international community and how the markets will react to the charade this week, as well as the apathy that has been generated, which will lead to lesser number of voters this week, are losses that will be hard to repair,” he said.
The Director-General of LCCI, Muda Yusuf, told The Guardian that nearly all activities were disrupted as a result of the postponement, adding that a slowdown should be expected in the days ahead till the elections are conducted. Yusuf specifically cited SMEs’ activities, the airports and seaports, which were shut down, preventing many people who ought to move from one location to another from doing so. He noted that the impact of the loss would be felt across the sectors of the economy, especially for activities scheduled for February 23, the new date of the elections.
In the aviation sector, the postponement was estimated to have cost airlines and agencies about N1.8 billion ($5 million), according to the President of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), the downstream sector of the aviation industry, Bernard Bankole; who blamed the loss on cancellation of local and international flights, and very low passenger turnout, due to earlier restriction of land movement. Bankole observed that no fewer than 10 foreign airlines were cancelled coupled with the entire shutdown of local operations due to the postponed elections.
Aviation Security Consultant, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), said airlines would experience more decline in passenger traffic till mid-week, because the postponement would affect government activities and other businesses as a whole. For capital market experts, the postponement has injected uncertainty into the nation’s political process, and would definitely erode investors’ confidence in the market; as it has it has deepened Nigeria’s political risk with dire consequences on investment decisions.
