Condemnation, mockery and appeals are greeting the whopping fees sought by the All Progressives Congress (APC), for expression of interest and nomination forms. Two aspirants: Adamu Garba and Salihu Othman Isah kicked against the N100 million tag.
APC pegged its Expression of Interest and Nomination forms for the 2023 presidential and governorship aspirants at N100 million and N50 million respectively.
According to the party, aspirants for senatorial positions would pay N20 million for the forms, House of Representatives, N10 million and House of Assembly aspirants N2 million.
On social media, many lampoon’s the party and mocked its anti-corruption stance.
“100M for the form. Wow,” Garba stated in shock, adding: “If we don’t come together and use our collective power to save this country from strangulation of the moneybags, we are doing a great disservice to our generation and that of the future.
“We cannot continue to buy political offices in Nigeria, we need competent leaders come 2023”.
Former Cross River State Governor, Clement Ebri, came a suggestion for the National Working Committee to wield the powers given to it by the National Executive Committee to reduce the huge fees.
Isah said only those with stolen money can purchase the form, with the ulterior motive of seeing it as an investment they must recoup whilst in office.
He also described the actions as a deliberate process perfected by the leaders to disenfranchise genuine and passionate Nigerians ready to serve.
Isah pointed out that once they succeeded in edging out those actually ready to transform the nation, their children and wards who they perfectly groomed to take over from them to continue to plunder our commonwealth, will take over the system to continue where they stopped.
“I read somewhere on a social media platform the APC youth leader happy to announce that he was able to negotiate a fifty percent discount for the youths who want to vie for the presidency.
“My question now is how many youths can muster such amount of money. What we are talking about here is N50 million just to purchase the form.
“In the opinion of the former chairman of Civil Liberties Organisation in the North West zone, “Only the werewolves want to continue to superintend over the governance of this nation.
“And it is sad that this is happening under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari. It is disheartening that he will allow the APC Buccaneers to have their way.
“The cost is bound to limit the options available because most of those passionate and committed to leading the country out of the woods cannot afford the cost of buying the form.
“And to imagine that this is exclusive of the campaign resources required by the aspirants and/or candidates when they finally emerge to campaign nationwide.
It will encourage and set the pace for massive looting by whoever is the product of this unintelligent fixng of the cost for obtaining the form.”
“Where do they expect the youths to muster that humongous amount of money to purchase the forms if not that they are encouraging monumental looting of our common patrimony with a view to finally bury our dear nation.”
He bemoaned the actions of Mr. President and the recently installed National Chairman of the party adding that it is now clear he came to do the hatchet job of killing the party.
“He is beginning to bare his fangs and having started this way, I can assure you that before the 2023 general elections, APC will be no more.
“The gameplan is also to ensure mass movement out of the APC into other parties especially the rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to serve their ulterior motives.
“To imagine that President Muhammadu Buhari who claimed to be very poor in 2014 such that he couldn’t afford to purchase the forms as cheap as it was then compared to this one. If I recall, it was about N20 million at that time.
He recalled that he was one of those that donated to Mr. President’s campaign funds and mustered mass procurement of recharge cards to raise funds for his campaign.
“And for his reelection in 2019, some of us also deployed our hard earned resources, person funds to prosecute the campaign. As for me, we won our units. We won our ward and we secured our local governments with personal resources to ensure victory for Mr. President.
“Our hope at that time was that Mr. President and our party, the All Progressives Congress will get it right for the benefit of Nigerians going forward. But what we have today is the direct opposite with stolen funds being what they want to use for campaigns and vote buying.
“I am sorry for the youths of this country because none of those at the top reckons with them and wish to hand power over them. The corrupt want to continue to steal and maintain crass display of wealth.
“But to me, I think it is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise those of us on genuine rescue mission of this nation and I bet they won’t succeed in frustrating us. As I said here earlier , there are several other options since the wrecked old power mongers won’t yield space for us. Mark my words please that said, “No one will acquire this form with his or her hard earned resources. Funds they laboured over time to muster. Only those with stolen resources can and will afford it. And I think it is also a deliberate and wicked attempt to displace the youths after successfully achieving the ‘Not-Too-Young-To-Run’ act.
Ebri’s statement reads in full:
With reference to the recent announcement by the All Progressives Congress (APC) concerning the cost of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms for various elective positions, the APC owes it to itself and the teeming numbers of Nigerians who voted it into power for two consecutive terms, to remain a Party of true progressives and a true Party of progressives.
The current party position on the cost of forms for Expression of Interest and Nomination for elective offices appears to vitiate the very principles upon which the party campaigned and was voted into power.
All true party men and women should be concerned that our party, which was founded on the values and ideals of progressive philosophy will make prequalification for elective offices – at state and national level – the exclusive preserve of party members with either great personal wealth or that have unlimited access to other sources of funding. The danger this poses to the party is that many prospective and otherwise eminently qualified office seekers that do not possess enormous personal wealth will in every practical sense, be precluded from seeking party nomination, regardless of the depth and breadth of their popular support.
If as some people may argue, that the reason for the exorbitant cost of nomination forms is simply to prune the number of contenders, or to delineate the pretenders from the contenders, then I think that argument is flawed. There are ample objective and progressive criteria such as: integrity, experience, character, political antecedents, empathy, intelligence, goodwill, etc, which can be employed to enable the emergence of genuinely qualified candidates. We all know that personal wealth was not the yardstick of assessment that enabled his Excellency Mr. President to emerge as flag bearer of the party in 2015 & 2019.
A comparative analysis of the APC’s cost of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms and that of the main opposition party shows that a member of the APC with gubernatorial aspirations will not only be spending more than twice what his/her counterparts in the opposition are, but will also be spending more to vie for gubernatorial office than the opposition candidates vying for the office of president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Furthermore, as laudable as the concession of 50% reduction for youths (contestants under the age of 40 years) may seem, it is worthy of note that the youths in the APC that are vying for governorship will still be paying more than their opposition counterparts, and youths vying for the presidential ticket will equally be paying more than what the opposition presidential aspirants are paying to vie for nomination. The case of women and persons living with disability (PWD) is equally worrisome. Given the history of social and political exclusion of women and PWD, which the party has been in the vanguard of addressing, how many persons living with disability can afford to pay Thirty Million Naira (N30,000,000) as Expression of interest for the presidential ticket?
Let us not forget that the APC came to power inter alia, on the aegis of the promise to fight against corruption in the system, and the Nigerian people must continue to see us as accountable stewards of the mandate given to us.
For a party that is fighting corruption therefore, the exorbitant cost of Expression of Interest and nomination forms raises a number of key questions, namely:
(a) How are those presently in government able to legitimately raise the required funds to qualify for the party’s presidential ticket nomination for example?
(b). If such candidates claim they are being sponsored by friends and backers, can those backers show evidence of their income via their income tax returns?
(c). What is the implication of this on the cost of running the actual campaigns?
(d). How many people can legitimately spend this much to obtain party nomination and still effectively be able to fund their campaigns?
(e). Will this not adversely affect voters perception of our great party, if we do not review our position?
(f). Are we justifying inflation by such a whopping increase in the cost of nomination forms from 2015 to 2023?
(g). Are we not inadvertently making the APC a party of wealthy by the wealthy for the wealthy? This last question has deep implications for a party that is in power and as custodian, necessarily has access to our common wealth.
In the interest of the party therefore, I implore the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great party, to rethink the party’s position on this matter that is no doubt generating a lot of debate and controversy from within and without the party. It is well within the purview of the NWC in accordance with the powers delegated to it by the NEC for a specified period, to continue to work for the good of the party, to review the cost of nomination forms presently demanded of aspirants to elective offices on the platform of our beloved party. This will help to ensure that the APC strategically repositions itself as the progressive party that we have all labored to make it.
We should not give the impression that one must belong to the billionaires club to aspire to the highest political office in the land – the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We are and must remain a progressive and equal opportunity party.
