An Abuja-based human rights lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi, has slammed the ruling All Progressives Congress over the “exorbitant cost” of its nomination forms for elective posts which he described as akin to ransom charged by kidnappers terrorising the country.
The lawyer made this known in a statement titled, ‘Fee or ransom? A call on Nigerian youths to revolt against APC at the 2023 polls’.
The APC had last week fixed the fees for the nomination forms — while presidential aspirants are expected to pay N100m, governorship hopefuls will pay N50m, House of Representatives aspirants will pay N10m, and Senate aspirants will pay is N20m.
Many Nigerians and civil society organisations had called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to probe any APC presidential aspirant who purchase a nomination form for N100m.
Reacting, Olajengbesi lamented that “the ruling All Progressive Party is auctioning the presidency”, adding that an average civil servant earning the national minimum wage would have to save all of his or her earnings for over 200 years to afford the presidential form.
He added, “A candidate who spends much more than he would earn in a single tenure as basic salary would spend a chunk of his time in office recouping his ‘investment’.
“I must confess that my first thought on finding out the cost of the APC Presidential Form Fee was whether the party is taking a cue from the dare-devil terrorists and bandits that kidnap people for ransom. Those bandits might be inspired to go higher in their demands!
“The paradigm of a failed party overseeing a failed government auctioning its party’s form at such outrageous fees is ominous. There is no integrity in these fees having the backing of General Muhammadu Buhari who claimed to have struggled through a loan to obtain the APC’s N20Million Form Fee in 2015. A leader should lessen and not aggravate difficulties unless, of course, it is an admission of the biting inflation that has plagued this government from inception to date. All things considered, it is an embarrassing affair.
“It behoves the Nigerian youths whose immediate future is threatened by the monetisation of governance to say enough is enough by having their voices heard loud and hard at the polls.”
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