N100m, N50m price tags: Politicians buying APC’s presidential, governorship nomination forms should be investigated for fraud – PDP Chairman
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, has slammed the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the high cost of the ruling party’s nomination forms.
Newsclickng.com reports that that the APC had on Wednesday pegged its presidential nomination form at N100 million with that of the governorship going for N50 million.
Those wishing to contest for Senate under the APC are to pay N20 million while it’s N10 million for House of Representatives.
State Assembly aspirants are to pay N2 million.
But Ayu said the pegging of the nomination fees by the APC cast the ruling party in the image of rogues and hypocrites.
In a statement on Thursday by his Media Adviser, Simon Imobo-Tswam, the PDP chairman said it’s insensitive of the APC to fix such exorbitant rates for its nomination forms.
According to the chairman, the APC has disenfranchised thousands of her youths, and dashed the hopes of millions of Nigerian youths who applauded President Buhari when he signed the Not Too Young To Run Bill into law in 2018.
Ayu said: “It is most insensitive, and mind-boggling. In fact, all those buying the N100m and N50m nomination forms should be investigated for fraud.
“Nigerians can all see what the APC is: a fragmented alliance put together to capture power and inflict maximum pain on Nigerians, including their own members.
“Nigerians will recall how in 2014, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, now President and leader of the APC, told Nigerians that he had to borrow N27 million to buy his nomination form.
“The same man, as leader of his party, has now sanctioned the sale of the same forms at N100 million. I am told that’s an increase of N370 percent”.
The party chair recalled that the economy was still booming in 2014 when the PDP was in power.
“The incompetent APC presidency has now run the economy aground, making Nigeria the Poverty Capital of the World.
“How then can impoverished APC aspirants buy nominations at such prohibitively high costs? And yet, only recently he (President Buhari) preached ‘equal opportunity’ to them.
“We, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are different. We are a mass movement for the Nigerian people. This is why our nomination fees are soft and democratic.
“When you compare us with the APC, the difference is clear. This is why we must return to power to save Nigerians from this insensitive government”, the party chair added.
