The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), has chided political parties in Nigeria for high cost of nomination forms for aspirants seeking elective positions in the 2023 general elections.
Mr Auwal Rafsanjani, Chairman, TMG said this when he fielded reporters’ questions on Wednesday in Abuja, saying that such money could be devoted to help Nigerians in need.
“The nomination form for presidential aspirants on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) is N100 million.
“As if in competition, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) followed suit by announcing a nomination fee of N40 million for presidency.
“Nomination fees for governorship election is N50 million and N21 million respectively under the two parties, N20 million and N2.5 million for the senate and N10 million and N1.5 million respectively for the House of Representatives seat.
“About 40 persons have picked the presidential nomination forms, the nominees are mostly career politicians with no history of private entrepreneurships or beneficiaries of wealthy estates bequeathed by rich parents,” Rafsanjani said.
He advised Nigerian politicians to behave responsibly, because Nigerians would not forget their legacies too soon.
“You can imagine how the politicians are buying forms and yet in their communities, people are languishing in poverty.
“People are not having access to drinking water, people are not having access to health care system and if they could devote such money that is not even anything compared to the money they are now sharing for people to support them,’’ he said.
He said that if the aspirants could devote the money to people in need, it will help to improve lives in their communities which would be more appreciated.
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