Not up to one week after Lagos legal luminary and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr. Femi Falana warned that he will initiate a legal action against any political party that jerks up its price of forms for elective positions especially the presidential forms beyond reach; the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised cost of presidential forms to N12m.
A gazette document titled; ‘Electoral Guideline for the PDP’ from the Office of the Directorate of Organisation and Mobilisation, showed weekend that each presidential aspirant must be nominated by not less than “60 persons from at least two-thirds of all the states of the federation who shall be registered voters in their respective local government areas and also registered members of the party.”
The document also said PDP male presidential aspirants are to pay a total sum of N12m for both nomination and expression of interest forms, respectively while female counterparts are to pay only N2m for expression of interest form as they are exempted from the payment of N10m nomination fee.
Falana, had last weekin Lagos, during the one-day national electoral summit, organised by the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, railed against the commercialisation of nomination forms by political parties.
He regretted that despite President Muhammadu Buhari expressing disappointment that he took a loan of N27m to buy the APC nomination form during the 2015 elections, he had not been able to change the guideline.
“The conditions for contesting elections from local government, to the House of Assembly, governorship, House of Representatives, Senate and presidential levels, are all in the constitution.
“There are decisions of the court to the effect that the Independent National Electoral Commission and state electoral commissions cannot collect fees from candidates who are contesting elections.
“So, if I am going to contest election, you can’t ask me to pay N27m as nomination fee because that is unknown to the constitution.
“Therefore, the parties cannot decide their own rules. They cannot impose prohibitive rules that will restrict the participation in the contest of an election to moneybags.
“Of course, we may have to sue the political parties if they continue this illegality. We cannot go on like this,” Falana averred. “An aspirant shall obtain the expression of interest forms code PD002/P upon payment of the non-refundable fee of N2m from the national secretariat of the party or such place as may be designated by the NWC of the party, and, on completion, return same to the national secretariat.
PDP in the draft added that “A copy of the voter’s registration card of the aspirant shall be attached to the duly completed nomination form.
“To be accompanied by a sworn declaration made before a Commissioner of Oaths or notary public; undertaking to abide by the guidelines, all laws and any rules or regulations made by the party for the conduct of the primary elections.
“The decision of the National Executive Committee of the party on all primary elections shall be final and binding.”
The party stated that its NEC would appoint a Presidential Screening Committee on the recommendation of the NWC.
Whereas the Committee noted that it “shall consist of a chairman and eight others. One from each geo-political zone, plus two women (one from the North and another from the South),” disclosed that aggrieved aspirants, who fail the screening exercise, would be free to appeal to a panel that would be led by Secondus, which will also include all other members of the NWC.
