A periodic election is a fundamental pillar and backbone of any democratic regime, and for a proper election to take place there must be some activities, most especially by parties and contestants to vote for them most especially competing to secure the electorates. These activities require huge expenditure from the parties and their financiers through campaigns, media advertisements and other related activities. The problem is that parties and their candidates are allowed, in Nigeria constitutionally and by the Electoral Act 2010, to source their campaign finance privately, which has led to illegal financing. The objective of this paper is to examine the sources of parties’ campaign expenditure in the Fourth Republic, taking the 2015 General Election as the case study. The research used a qualitative method of data collection and analysis where both primary and secondary sources were used. The primary source was an in-depth personal interview with some selected informants/participants from the categories of stakeholders in the electoral process, parties, and agencies responsible for regulating their activities. The secondary source was the use of available documents such as books, journals and Internet sources on the subject matter of the study. The data obtained were analysed and interpreted using thematic analytical interpretations from the informants’ views and the existing data in the field. The research discovered that there are basically six major sources of campaign expenditure for parties and that some of the sources are illegal and the spending has violated the regulations. The research recommends thorough supervision and monitoring of the sources of parties’ campaign expenditure and the spending process.

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尼日利亚第四共和国政党竞选经费来源：考察2015年大选

定期选举是任何民主政权的基本支柱和支柱，要进行适当的选举，必须有一些活动，尤其是政党和竞选者为他们投票，尤其是竞争以确保选民的安全。这些活动需要各方及其资助者通过宣传、媒体广告和其他相关活动进行巨额支出。问题在于，尼日利亚宪法和 2010 年《选举法》允许政党及其候选人私下获取竞选资金，这导致了非法融资。本文的目的是以2015年大选为案例研究第四共和国政党竞选支出的来源。该研究使用了数据收集和分析的定性方法，其中使用了主要和次要来源。主要来源是对选举过程中的利益相关者类别、政党和负责监管其活动的机构的一些选定线人/参与者进行的深入个人访谈。次要来源是关于研究主题的可用文件的使用，例如书籍、期刊和互联网资源。使用来自知情人的观点和现场现有数据的专题分析解释，对获得的数据进行了分析和解释。研究发现，政党竞选经费的主要来源基本有六种，其中部分来源是非法的，而且开支也违反了规定。