Following widespread criticism against the All Progressives Congress (APC) for pegging the price of presidential nomination forms at N100m, the ruling party has declared that any presidential aspirants that cannot pay the said sum is not serious to lead the country.
The National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu, who made this known said any serious individual aspiring for the office of the President of Nigeria should be able to pay N100m for the nomination form.
The New Diplomat had reported that the APC at a meeting of its National Executive Committee in Abuja announced the fees for its expression of interest and nomination forms for the 2023 General Elections.
The party pegged a total fee of N100 million for presidential aspirants of which N30 million is for the expression of interest form while N70 million is for the nomination form.
Since the announcement, Nigerians have been criticising the ruling party, describing the fees as exorbitant and exclusionary.
However, Adamu during an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) Hausa Service, downplayed the criticism, saying that the contest for the Nigerian presidency is huge and not a contest of the motor park union.
He explained that for any aspirant that cannot mobilise at least 10,000 supporters to raise funds for his political ambition is not a serious aspirant.
In his words: “We are talking about the president of Nigeria, not the emir of your town. Now when the emir of your town dies the person seeking to replace him will spend more than N100 million for just one emirate.
“For example, someone who is seeking to be president of Nigeria asked 10000 of his supporters each to contribute N10,000 how much will that be. If he lacked supporters to contribute he didn’t deserve to contest, I didn’t want to belittle you because the president of Nigeria is not the chairman of your village motor park.
“If you want to kill a dog you will give him a bad name, there is nothing to compare between seeking to be Nigeria’s president and corruption using the cost of the form.
“If you can not participate, there is no compulsion, if you don’t have N100m you have no business with becoming president. Tell me which country will not fix reasonable numbers to contest the position of the president? No country that practices democracy like ours will not fix the amount to around N100m. In fact, how much is N100m?
“Even in the recent France election, how much did Macron pay? How much did Le pen pay to participate? How much did president Joe Biden pay in America? How much did former President Donald Trump Pay? This is just an attempt to dent our image, it is the opposition party that is doing that. It will not change our minds or reduce the cost of the nomination form. Anyone that wants to participate let him participate, that is the amount. When I was seeking to be the National Chairman of APC I paid N20 million, and other aspirants paid the same.
“Our party has principles, if you can follow the guidelines you can participate.
“And another thing is our party is the ruling party, if we fix the amount less, the same opposition can sponsor some people to come and participate before you know court cases will arise everywhere. Let’s see if any devil can pay N100m to sponsor some”, he added.
