Major political parties in Nigeria have dared a human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, to go ahead with his threat to sue political parties who sell nomination forms to aspirants wishing to contest elections on their platforms. The All Progressives Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party, in separate interviews with our correspondents on Friday, said the Electoral Act actually empowered them to raise funds from their members. The APC said it was not contemplating stopping the sale of nomination forms to its aspirants. The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said, “We are definitely not contemplating stopping charging fees for nomination forms, no. “The issue of payment for nomination forms has been provided for in the 2015 Electoral Act (as amended) it even puts a cap to how much can be charged for presidential nomination forms, governorship, national and state Houses of Assembly and so on.” The spokesperson for the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, wondered if the senior lawyer understood what he was saying. “Falana is not a member of our party and he seems not to know what he is talking about. With the new Electoral Act, we have the constitutional rights to fix nomination fees and other levies to run the affairs of our party and to release guidelines,” he stated. He dismissed any suggestion that the party would stop collecting money for nomination forms from members wishing to contest elections. The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the SDP, Mr. Alfa Mohammed, also argued that funding political parties from the proceeds of sales of nomination forms was constitutional. Mohammed explained that the constitution allowed parties to raise funds, adding that the parties could decide to raise such funds by asking aspirants to pay certain amounts as nomination or expression of interest fees. He added, “Whichever name they want to call such a levy, it is allowed. I don’t see anything unconstitutional about it. Normally, parties have to conduct electioneering with funds. The primary election itself has to be funded. “So, if aspirants don’t contribute through levy on nomination forms, where do you want the party to raise funds to execute all those activities that are involved in the primary election and others that will lead to the execution of the election campaign for the aspirants or candidates? When asked the fees for nomination forms of the SDP, Mohammed stated that both the expression of interest and nomination forms for governorship position would cost N5m. He said, “When you look at the cost of conducting primary, for instance, in Ekiti State where we had a primary, we had just four aspirants and that would amount to N20m; but we spent over N50m executing the election, apart from other expenditure.” Meanwhile, a cross section of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, in separate interviews with PUNCH (Not TheNigerialawyer), disagreed with Falana’s position on the constitutionality of commercialisation of nomination forms by political parties. One of them, Emeka Ngige, told one of our correspondents that people who were vying for offices should be made to pay for nomination forms. Ngige said, “Worldwide, political parties collect money for administrative handling of matters. If there are candidates that would contest a primary to get a ticket, the political party would spend money to organise that primary. “They would have to print ballot papers; hire people that would help them to organise; they would have to get the venue and so on. “The nomination form is not for the political parties to make profit. It is to take care of their administrative expenses that they would incur in processing those nomination forms. So, I don’t agree with him (Falana) on that.” Similarly, Ifedayo Adedipe explained that a political party was a voluntary organisation that could fix its mode of operation, including whether or not to ask for money to run its affairs. The SAN added, “I understand where he (Falana) is coming from. His belief is that if people pay money to run the parties, the parties should just give them the forms for free. But this idea that it is unconstitutional is, to my mind, extremist, and I don’t agree with it. “Under the constitution, individuals contest various offices, but individuals can only be sponsored by political parties. So, political parties, not being government agencies, should fund themselves by demanding membership fees, development fees, etc. from members.” According to the senior lawyer, the argument perhaps should be that if a political party will ask for nomination fees, it should be reasonable. Mr. Tayo Oyetibo, however, argued that the circumstances should be the determinant of the constitutionality of parties demanding money for nomination forms. “If it is going to create an impediment in the way of participation, yes (it is unconstitutional), but insofar as the constitution allows everyone to contest, if there is an obstacle in the way of that participation, we need to look at it from that perspective. “But again, if it involves the expenditure which will be incurred to enable you to participate in the election, then, you could say it is constitutional. So, it depends on the circumstances,” Oyetibo said.]]>

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