The ruling APC reportedly made N12.6bn from its members’ purchase of nomination and expression of interest forms
- The party allegedly made 45m from presidential form, 3.847bn from governorship forms, and 6.03bn from Senate form
- The party has not, however, confirmed nor discredited the figures
The All Progressives Congress (APC) reportedly realised N12.635bn from the sale of its presidential, Senate and House of Representatives expression of interest and nomination forms for the recently concluded primaries held across the country.
The Punch newspapers said it arrived at the figures after computing the cost of the forms and multiplying it by the number of aspirants who paid for and collected same to participate in the primaries.
President Muhammadu Buhari was the only aspirant that bought the presidential forms. He was supported to collect the forms to contest the presidential primary. The president’s supporters were said to have paid N45m to obtain the forms on his behalf.
Gist Station gathers that governorship aspirants paid the non-refundable fee of N22.5m each to obtain their forms as of the close of sales; 171 aspirants were confirmed by the party to have paid for and obtained the forms. When the figure was multiplied by N22.5m, it amounted to N3,847,500,000 or N3.847bn.
For the Senate, 386 aspirants paid N7m each to obtain the forms and when the number was multiplied by the total number of aspirants, it brought the figure to N2.702bn.
No fewer than 1,587 persons reportedly paid N3.8m each to obtain the party’s nomination forms. When the number was multiplied, it amounted to N6,030,600,000 or N6.03bn.
When the sums were put together, The Punch reports that they amounted to a grand total of N12, 625,100,000 or N12.625bn.
The newspaper, however, stated that its efforts to speak with the new APC national publicity secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, to confirm the figures were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report on Friday, October 19.
It was, however, gathered that the party leadership allegedly opted to increase the cost of its forms to raise the needed resources to conduct the primaries and also prosecute the 2019 elections.
The APC national vice-chairman (South-South), Hilliard Eta, had, in an earlier interview with The Punch, said: “Anybody who cannot afford the cost of our forms has no business running for an election.
“We all know elections anywhere in the world are expensive ventures. You have to be prepared because you will require money for logistics, to print posters, T-shirts and other items.
“As a party, we have made conscious efforts to ensure that we do not dip our hands into public treasury to run the party as was the case in the past.”
0 Yorumlar