Emerging report indicates that the ₦100 million set by the All Progressives Congress, APC, for Aspirants seeking to run for President is far higher than the four-year salaries of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
With the current salary of the President, which is put at ₦14.058 million yearly or N1.171 million monthly, according to a breakdown by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, it means that the ₦100 million APC nomination form is the salary of the President for about 85 months or seven years.
For the VP, who currently earns ₦12.126million yearly or ₦1.01million monthly, the sum is his salary for 99 months or eight years and three months.
Reacting to the cost of the nomination form, rights group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, urged the EFCC and the ICPC to probe the source of wealth of any Presidential aspirant who picks the APC presidential nomination and expression of interest forms.
The group said only corrupt politicians would afford that much for a nomination form.
“Anyone who buys the nomination form at such a scandalous amount should be arrested and handed over to law enforcement agencies such as EFCC or ICPC or the Nigeria Police Force for investigation on the source of the money,” said HURIWA.
“We only just finished carpeting the opposition PDP for bastardising the process of nominating its presidential candidate by inflating the cost of its nomination form to ₦40m, little did we know that the politicians who run the Federal Government and have ruined the national economy will peg theirs at the extravagant cost of ₦100m.
“This same APC government is unable to meet the funding obligations for federal universities and thereby has left millions of students of public schools to roam around in their homes due to industrial strike by university teachers for over two months.
“It is a shame that those who seek to govern Nigeria are made to cough out so much money to purchase forms just to signpost their original intention as persons whose only objective would be to first recoup their huge investments and to further impoverish the citizenry.”
