The All Progressives Congress has pegged its presidential nomination and expression of interest forms at N100 million.
The party also said its presidential candidate will be chosen through an indirect primary election. By this, APC has effectively jettisoned the much-touted consensus rule in the choice of its candidate.
These decisions were taken on Wednesday at the party’s National Executive Committee meeting taking place at the Transcorp Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.
At APC’s convention held on March 26, the concept of consensus had held sway in the delegates’ decisions, even in the choice of those who attended the convention.
At the NEC meeting on Wednesday, President Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders of the party transmitted their powers to the National Working Committee of the APC to make decisions for a period of 90 days.
Those who have declared their interests to contest APC’s Presidential primary are Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu; the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; Ebonyi State Governor, and Dave Umahi.
Others are Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Kayode Fayemi.
The presidential nomination form will sell for N70 million while expression of interest forms would cost N30 million.
APC also set the cost of nomination forms for other elective posts as follows: State House of Assembly, N2Million; House of Representatives N10Million; Senate 20 Million, and Governorship N50 Million.
However, a member of the party believes the claim that APC’s presidential candidate would be chosen by party’ primary is a ruse.
“For the presidential candidate, the stakes are so high that there is no way they can leave the choice to the delegates to decide,” he said.
“They just want the delegates to chop the candidates’ money,” the member of the party who was a delegate in 2015 and 2019 declared.
At the 2015 primary, he said one candidate gave each of the delegates $2,000, while another gave out N150,000 to each of the over 8,000 delegates. According to him, all the contestants, except Buhari, gave money to the delegates.
