It undermines democracy, says Samson Itodo on cost of APC nomination forms

Samson Itodo, executive director of YIAGA Africa, a non-governmental organisation, says the cost of nomination forms of the All Progressives Congress (APC) undermines democracy.

At its national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Wednesday, the party announced that its presidential hopefuls will pay N100 million to buy the nomination forms while the governorship hopefuls will pay N50 million.

The cost of state house of assembly nomination forms was pegged at N2 million while that of the house of representatives is N10 million and the senate N20 million.

Reacting to this development on Thursday via Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, Itodo said the high cost of the forms undermines democracy, adding that it will create negative competition in the nation’s elections.

“The moment you make the entry into political context defined by your economic war-chest, you have undermined the qualities and qualifications that should define our leadership selection process,” he said.

“And it’s sad, other than the political party investing in identifying competent leaders, who can fly the flag of the party, and provide voters with options of competent people, they have pegged the high cost of nomination fees.

“This will marginalise a lot of people, young people. Beyond the 50% discount provided for the youths, I think what they could have done was to say ‘we have got to reduce the impact of money in our politics’.

“We can’t have a political process that is defined and determined by money. Because when you do, you undermine the democratic process and you promote corruption.

“When people spend this amount of money just to procure forms, we are not talking about campaigns, so at the end of the day when people spend this amount of money to get into office, their first preoccupation when they get into the office is how to recoup their resources. 

“By this high cost, don’t you think this undermines our democracy, if we justify why political parties should increase the cost of nomination forms without having discussion on what should set criteria for people running for office.

“I think the more you continue to increase that funding and money spent, you increase the negative competitive nature of our elections.

“People see that ‘I have spent this amount of money, so I must win this election’. So this do or die nature of our politics is reinforced by this cost.

“This also has implications for violence because when people spend this amount of money, they don’t want to be shortchanged, they make it a duty to circumvent the election just because they won’t be losers at the end.”