Ex-INEC Commissioner expects Buhari to reject N45m as cost of APC nomination forms

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National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and National Coordinator of NCAN president the prototype of cheque with which the forms for the President was purchased last Wednesday.

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A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Lai Olurode has said that President Muhammadu Buhari should have rejected the N45m approved by the All Progressives Congress (APC) as cost of presidential nomination form.

He said the form is not only costly but has shut out other aspirants especially the youths who would not be able to afford the nomination form.

Olurode spoke in Lagos on Sunday during the annual national conference of Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN), Lagos Area Unit with the theme, “Youth Leadership and Governance.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference held at the University of Lagos, the former INEC Chief who teaches Sociology at the University, expressed dismay at the high cost of nomination form by political parties, saying it discourages mass participation in the process.

“APC is selling presidential form for N45m,” he lamented. “I would have expected Mr. President to kick against that, that is his party. That is not good enough to the rest of the society.

“That is a wrong way of opening up the political system. The political space is still restricted, definitely there is no youth that can go, not to talk of the money that you need to even do campaign. So before you know it, we are all in the hands of moneybags and wherever money dictates, you cannot have development.”

A respondent however argued that, against the former INEC commissioner’s position, it was not possible for an executive leader-member of APC to reject but appeal against the high APC forms cost.

He said people who talk this way are the way people who would lead a crusade against the President if he had done so blaming him for usurping the supremacy of the party system to its membership.


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