2023: Turning primaries into AUCTIONS

The All Progressives Congress (APC)
on Wednesday announced that it would sell its presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for N100 million.

The amount, to say the least, is mind-boggling and it shows that for an aspirant to contest a presidential
primary in either the APC or the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), he must at least be a billionaire. Thus, an extremely brilliant aspirant with a million naira or two in his
account cannot aspire to the topmost
position in the land just because he is
of modest means.

The PDP had also earlier
announced that it would sell presidential nomination forms for N40m. Even for a state assembly position, an aspirant needs to fork out N2 million for the forms. So, the question
is why are the amounts for the forms so high? What is the rationale behind this action? Are APC and PDP just simply a party of the rich for the rich? In the Second Republic, teachers
became governors because the defunct parties; the National Party of Nigeria(NPN), the Unity Party of Nigeria(UPN), the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) and the Great Nigeria
Peoples Party(GNPP), did not place financial hurdles before aspirants.

Thus, the Governor of the old Ondo State, late Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin was a retired principal before
winning the election; his counterpart then in Ogun State, Late Chief Bisi Onabanjo was a journalist; late Lateef Jakande of Lagos State was also a journalist; while the late Chief Bola
Age of the old Oyo State was a lawyer.
In the North, there was also the late Balarabe Musa, who was a retired civil servant, who became the Governor of Kaduna State while
in the South-East, Jim Nwobodo, a civil servant then emerged as the governor of the old Anambra State.

In all of those instances, the politicians were not moneyed men but rode on credibility and knowledgeableness to power. But unfortunately, now, the political
positions in APC and the PDP are clearly for money bags. However, some of the greatest
political players in the world are not moneyed men and having accounts full of money is not equal to having ideas to move the nation forward.

The parties don’t need to create financial barriers before aspirants in a way
that it is only those who are very rich that can participate. Turning primaries into auctions are not the best way to move democracy forward.