Dispassionate look at high party nomination fees in Nigeria

 

SINCE the ruling All Progressives Congress announced the fees for the Expression of Interest and Nomination Form last Wednesday, a lot of people have been criticising the party for charging high nomination fees. Some said it will promote corruption in government. Others said it is illegal. However, many have failed to understand the motive behind these charges, especially by the dominant political parties, the APC and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party. Since the APC saga broke out, I have granted three media interviews on the issue. The first was to TV 360, Premium Times and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria.

Before delving into the merit and the demerit of the high party nomination fees and its implication on democracy, let’s first see what the charges are. Using the Premium Times report of Sunday, April 24, 2022 on the issue as a guide, the newspaper observed as that the APC, at a meeting of its National Executive Committee attended by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in Abuja, on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, announced the fees for its expression of interest and nomination forms for the 2023 general elections. The fees include N100 million for presidential aspirants, made up of N30 million for the expression of interest form and N70 million for the nomination form. The party also fixed N50 million for governorship aspirants, N20 million and N10 million for senatorial and House of Representatives aspirants respectively, and N2 million for state House of Assembly aspirants. However, aspirants under 40 years will get a 50 per cent discount on the fees while women and persons living with disabilities will pay only for the expression of interest forms.

According to the newspaper, “Compared with other political parties, the APC has always charged the highest fees for aspirants seeking party tickets for elections into public offices. For the 2023 election, the party has raised the fee for the presidential nomination forms by 263 per cent over what it charged in 2014. The current fee is the highest any political party in the country has ever asked an aspirant to pay for a chance to contest for its ticket. While in 2014 the APC charged its governorship aspirants N6.5 million, it has now increased this by 669 per cent to N50 million. In comparison, as the party in government in 2014, the PDP sold its expression of interest and nomination forms to presidential aspirants for N22 million, at a time the APC sold its own for N27.5 million.”

 

In 2019, the PDP sold its EOI and nomination forms as follows: N12 million for president,  N6 million for governor, N3.5 million for Senate, N2.5 million for House of Representatives and N600,000 for House of Assembly. But the APC, which had become the ruling party elected on a “change” agenda, sold its own at a much higher rate of N45 million for president, N22.5 million for governor, N7 million for Senate, N3.85 million for House of Representatives and N850,000 for House of Assembly.

The question is, why do the dominant political parties charge high nomination fees? My research shows that they do for the following reasons: The first is to raise money for the funding of their party administration. Members hardly pay membership fees. Yet, political parties have bureaucracy, I mean staff who run the daily affairs of the parties. The permanent secretariat of PDP has been under construction for many years without completion. Perhaps, the party is paying rent on its Wadata House national secretariat in Abuja. Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State as chairman of Caretaker Extraordinaire Convention Planning Committee that midwifed the March 26, 2022 National Convention of the ruling party said in its speech at the Eagles Square during the convention that they have eventually paid for the final acquisition of the party secretariat at Blantyre Street, Wuse II, Abuja. This must have cost the party billions of naira to acquire given the location of the secretariat. Assuming without conceding that the two dominant political parties now own their national party secretariat, what about their state, local government and ward offices? They probably are still paying rent on those party secretariats.

Aside from rents, the party leadership has to pay for utilities such as electricity, water, security, purchase of operational vehicles, website subscription and many other expenses too numerous to mention. They have to pay staff salaries, when they organise programmes for the party, even to conduct party congresses, conventions and primaries, a lot of costs are involved. Thus, if party members are not paying dues and levies, how will the parties be able to sustain its programmes and projects? Let’s be realistic, politics anywhere is not cheap.  If the over 40 million registered members of APC are to pay N12,000 annually as membership fees imagine how many billions will accrue to the purse of APC?

The question is, why are party members not paying dues? To my mind, it’s because the party leadership are too detached from their members. Members are not consulted when vital decisions are being taken by the party leadership. If political parties are to organise direct primaries and make membership fee payment as a precondition to voting at such an event, the party involved is sure to rake in huge resources.

The second motive for charging high nomination fees is to test the seriousness of the aspirants. To put it like Chief John Odigie-Oyegun did in 2014, when he was APC National Chairman, it is to “separate boys from men.” The truth is there are too many unserious aspirants and even candidates contesting elections in Nigeria. People who obviously do not have the clout or chances of winning councillorship elections will want to vie for the presidency of the country, all in the name of participation. If APC as the ruling party were to make its EOI and Nomination Fee cheap, there are chances that many unserious aspirants will throw their hat in the ring to contest. They will end up crowding the political space and making the conduct of party primaries unwieldy.  Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission registered 91 political parties and there were 74 presidential candidates. However, over 95 per cent of the votes were won by APC and PDP. In essence, given that the EOI and nomination fee is non-refundable. Anyone parting with that kind of money sure must be serious.

The other point to make is the value of Nigeria’s currency, the naira. What’s the purchasing power of the naira today? The currency has been grossly devalued and has weak purchasing power. Galloping inflation has affected prices of goods and services. Thus, if you look at the exchange rate of naira to foreign currencies such as dollar, euro or pound sterling four years ago, the N100 million of today may be less than N50 million four years back. So when people are shouting about high nomination fees, they also have to put that in context.  It is noteworthy that the dominant political parties, APC and PDP, give concessions to women, youths and persons with disabilities. As mentioned above, in APC, women and PWDs are to pay only for EOI while youths below 40 years are to pay 50 per cent of the sum charged.

In conclusion, politics in Nigeria and globally is an expensive venture that needs a lot of thinking before aspirants jump into the arena to contest elections. There are, at present, 18 registered political parties in Nigeria, if the nomination forms of some are exorbitant, why not register with others who charges cheap nomination fees? It’s not mandatory you contest election under APC or PDP. Aspirants must also learn about resource mobilisation in politics. Crowd funding is a veritable source of mobilising small donations from large number of people. APC did a bit of that in 2015. Barack Obama’s presidential bid was largely funded from small donations from Americans. High nomination fees does not, stricto sensu, lead to corruption. There are wealthy people who can easily afford to pay the fees and those who cannot organise fundraisers to be able to meet up. Even if there’s no EOI and nomination fees, those who want to be corrupt will.