High cost of party nomination forms

Nigerians, including President Muhammadu Buhari, spontaneous criticism of the high costs of nomination forms by the country’s two major political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not only germane but also justifiable.
It is trite to observe that the excessive monetization of the electoral process poses grave danger to our evolving democracy as well as the emergence of true and qualitative leadership.
It also tends to negate the intent of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Act as it will deprive many young Nigerians from vying for elective offices.
The APC’s National Working Committee had initially proposed N55 million as the cost of the nomination and expression of interest forms for the office of President, which is way higher than the N12 million being charged by the opposition PDP.
Those seeking the party’s nod to contest the state houses of assembly elections are asked to be prepared to part with N1.1 million as against PDP’s N600,000, while for the House of Representatives, APC aspirants are asked to pay N3.8 million.
The PDP is asking its aspirants to pay N1.5 million to contest the tickets.
For the Senate, APC aspirants will pay N8.5 million as against the N 3.5 million the PDP is asking from its aspirants for the same position.
Governorship aspirants of the ruling party are asked to pay N22.5 million each to contest the ticket as against the N6 million to be paid by their counterparts in the PDP.
However, the APC was forced to make a downward review of the cost of its nomination forms following the outcry of civil society groups and other stakeholders in the Nigeria project including President Buhari who told the National Working Committee members of the APC that N55 million nomination fee is too high for him.
The ruling party, in a statement by its acting National Publicity Secretary on Tuesday, said a presidential aspirant would now pay N45m, as against N55m fixed by the party last week.
According to the party, “each presidential aspirant will pay N5 million for expression of interest form and N40 million for the nomination form.” For a governorship aspirant it would be “N2.5 million for expression of interest form and N20 million for nomination form making it N22.5 million.
For a senatorial ticket, an aspirant will pay N1 million for the expression of interest form and N6 million for a nomination form.
The House of Representatives aspirant will pay N3.85 million, including N350,000 for the expression of interest form and N3.5 million for the nomination form.
“A House of Assembly aspirant to pay N850,000, including N100,000 for the expression of interest form and N750,000 for the nomination form.” The party also announced a 50 per cent discount for female and physically challenged aspirants.
It is instructive that the Senate on March 30, passed the Electoral Act No 6 2010 (Amendment) Bill 2017 and one of the things it will do when signed into law, is to abolish arbitrary fees for nomination forms fixed by political parties.
Before now, the parties demanded high fees for nomination forms from aspirants, fixing a price as it deemed fit even to the embarrassment of President Buhari, who in the build up to the 2015 election that he won, claimed he borrowed money to pay for his APC nomination form which cost N27 million at the time.
Also, human rights lawyer, Mr.
Femi Falana (SAN), has restated his opposition to the sale of nomination forms to aspirants for elective offices by political parties.
Falana threatened to take legal action against political parties that were still selling nomination forms to aspirants despite previous court judgments prohibiting such payment.
Falana, had last week, in Lagos, during the one-day national electoral summit, organised by the Transition Monitoring Group with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, railed against the commercialisation of nomination forms by political parties.
He said the conditions for contesting elections are all in the constitution, adding that parties cannot impose prohibitive rules that will restrict the participation in the contest of an election to moneybags.
Although Blueprint commends the APC for its responsiveness, it is our view that even its reviewed rate is well beyond the affordability of a swathe of eligible aspirants, particularly the youth and other vulnerable segments of society.
This undesirable trend is inconceivable considering the fact that President Buhari had four years ago complained over the N27.5 million nomination forms for the Presidential ticket and had argued that if he had his way, he would have ensured downward review of the fees.
We, therefore, urge the APC and PDP to review drastically the cost of their nomination forms downward, taking into cognizance the national minimum wage and prevalent high unemployment and poverty rates in the country.
If the excessive monetization and commercialization of the electoral process is not checked, the Buhari administration faces the risk of losing its war against corruption as well as stalling the development of Nigeria’s democracy