2019: Stakeholders decry expensive nomination forms

* Say faulty recruitment under way as only moneybags can purchase forms
* Seek legislation to limit cost of forms, campaign expenses
* Falana threatens legal action over expensive forms
As Nigeria heads towards another election in 2019 and with the Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections already at the door, some Nigerian political stakeholders are worried about the future of the nation’s electoral system which they say tends to shut out those with less financial muscle to prosecute elections.

Of special concern to them is the issue of the cost of nomination forms which political aspirants have to pay to their respective political parties before becoming eligible to stand election on the platform of the political party.

The inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to effectively control and regulate funding of election by the registered political parties and the failure of the National Assembly to put a ceiling to election funding in the Electoral Act is also a major concern in this matter.

Incidentally, the money paid by aspirants to purchase the nomination forms is non-refundable.

But a senior lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), believes that the practice of collecting prohibitive nomination fee from aspirants for political offices is illegal.

He has even threatened to sue political parties for sale of nomination forms despite, what he called, court judgements prohibiting such, arguing that parties cannot impose prohibitive rules that will restrict participation in the contest of an election to moneybags.

However, a politician and pioneer Lagos State deputy chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and 2011 governorship aspirant in the state, Mr. Qudus Gbolahan Folami, said that though he does not agree that selling of nomination form is illegal, but that there is need to reform the entire financing structure of politics in Nigeria to make it more accessible to everyone.

For the Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a pro-democracy group, the whole idea of paying exorbitant rate for nomination form smacks of a grand conspiracy to keep the system only for the moneybags and shut out those with less financial muscle.

The Daily Times recalls that prior to the 2015 election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) pegged the price for its nomination form at N27million, while the PDP put its own at N11 million and the then APC candidate, now President Muhammadu Buhari had said then that he had to take a bank loan to buy the form.

The argument in many quarters is that if Buhari, a retired Army general, who had been Military Head of State and also held many juicy political positions in the past could not afford N27million from his personal savings, then how many Nigerians can conveniently do same.

A source even told our correspondent that a once prominent businessman who was one of the APC presidential aspirants that bought the nomination form at N27 million almost went bankrupt afterwards and till date he still owes his members of staff a backlog of unpaid salaries, a situation they say was alien to him prior to venturing into partisan politics.

Wondering the rationale behind the high cost of nomination form, a political analyst who spoke in confidence asked: “How many self-made Nigerians, who have not been appointed at one time or the other to the corridors of power, would want to throw over N10 million into the purchase of a governorship nomination form?

“The scenario created by the two major political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the run-off to the 2015 general election in imposing the unimaginable high cost of nomination forms leaves much to be desired, which seems to suggest that elective offices are up for sale to the highest bidders and would ultimately promote the already vexing corruption level in the polity to higher grounds.”

Though unconfirmed report said that the Senate in the last amendment to the Electoral Act dealt with the issue of nomination fee chargeable by political parties and pegged what they can possibly charge their members, the bill is yet to see the light of the day.

However, it is speculated that in the new amendment, a presidential aspirant cannot pay more than N10million as nomination fee, N5million for a governorship aspirant, N2million for a senatorial aspirant, N1million for a House of Representatives aspirant, N500, 000 for a House of Assembly aspirant; N250, 000 for an area council chairmanship aspirant in the FCT and N150, 000 for a ward councillorship aspirant in the FCT.

But Dr. Akiode-Afolabi, who is the Executive Director, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC), is not comfortable with the high cost of the nomination forms.

To her, “it is not proper, it is not right, it is not the right thing to do if you want people to participate in the political process.

“It is a deliberate thing to preclude certain categories of people from participating in the political process, it is aimed at precluding the ordinary Nigerian from aspiring to hold public office, because majority of them cannot even afford the nomination fee.

“If you remember, the PDP gave its nomination form free for women, which means that they are also aware that ordinary Nigerians cannot be able to afford it, so I think the nomination fee is incredible, it will not allow us have the best for political office.”
Falana is even more pissed with the whole idea of a nomination fee.

According to him, any citizen who meets the requirements outlined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is qualified to contest any election; and parties cannot add to the constitutional requirements.

Consequently, he has threatened to take legal action against political parties for this practice.

Falana pointed out that it is regrettable that parties are still engaging in sale of expensive nomination forms, despite previous court judgments prohibiting such.

He said: “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 N27million 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.”

He further stated that aggrieved aspirants should be encouraged to challenge their parties.

Furthermore, Falana said: “Aggrieved party members should be encouraged to challenge the prohibitive nomination fees imposed on aspirants by political parties.

“I believe any citizen who meets the requirements outlined in the Constitution, is qualified to contest any election. Political parties cannot add to the constitutional requirements.”

But Folami is of the belief that the Nigerian electoral system requires some legislative fine-tuning to allow those with less deep pockets to participate.

He also urged Nigerians to understand that by the nature of politics that the nation practices, it is difficult for those who are less financially endowed to play active elective roles.

According to him, “Whatever the court might have said, the electoral law has not made any legislation against it. What the electoral law tried to do is to prescribe the limit of what a candidate can spend on the campaign itself.”

On whether it is right to collect it or not, he said: “It must be understood that that money is really the only income for political parties, because members do not donate to political parties here.

“Two things are involved, one, the parties use high fee to limit the number of contestants on the field, for example if you say the form for governorship in a state is free or as low as N500,000, you may have to deal with the number of aspirants of 50 or even 100, which becomes unwieldy and difficult to manage, so the fee for forms and for expression of interest in a way is also used to screen out the number of people in the race.

“Politics is not cheap. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any democracy where you can be poor and you want to contest election, unless you have some people who have put you forward and are paying your bills, there is no democracy anywhere were you do not have to commit resources,

it is expensive and we have chosen the very expensive type, the presidential system, which is a winner takes all and if you look at it is designed in such a way that the winner can compensate himself.

Like the security vote in office. And even the legislators have also found a way of rewarding themselves through high allowances.

“The cost of doing politics here is indeed high, but the cost of the form is even the least of all the expenses. If you look at the party, you cannot even call anybody to a meeting without giving him transport fare, even the ones you call political leaders, for you to retain a campaign team you will have to pay them for the duration of the campaign.

“This is just a reflection of our poverty, because it is devoid of any self pride. Because if you look at even the people that are collecting the money, you will be surprised that these ones that have been ministers before, that have been commissioners in a state before, they are not even turning down N20,000.

He will collect it and if you don’t give him, he will ask for it, this is our politics.

“So, really I believe that there has to be legislation in this our electioneering campaign to limit the spending, because the nomination forms shouldn’t really be that expensive.

“For example, with the high cost of electioneering in Nigeria, the Not Too Young To Run Law cannot fly.

In any case, I do not believe that those who signed the bill into law even believe in it, because if you are saying that the young people should participate, that same law should have prescribed the source of funding for the young ones.

“I said earlier in an interview that until there is a reform of party financing, there will never be an end to this thing they call corruption, because most of the people that are now being charged and prosecuted for corruption are being prosecuted for party and election financing.

“So, until there is reform in campaign financing, we will be deceiving ourselves, as we go into 2019 there will be need to finance election,” he added.