I Can’t Afford APC’s N100m Nomination Forms – Aspirant Laments
- Adamu Garba bids 2023 presidential race goodbye
BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – A failed attempt at raising the required N100 million to buy the Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has sent an aspirant, Adamu Garba II packing from the 2023 presidential race for good.
Adamu, who announced the sudden end to his presidential ambition on Tuesday, blamed the decision on the high cost of forms as well as financial demands in prosecuting the project.
The Information Technology (IT) expert and APC chieftain said at a media briefing in Abuja that selling the forms at N100 million has not only commercialized the political space but also put a wedge on the aspirations of young and upcoming political actors.
According to him, despite efforts by his campaign team, only N83.2 million was generated in private and online donations for the bid.
He took a swipe at the process saying; “We believe this action is capable of over-financializing our political space, institutionalizing vote-buying, encouraging corruption, and complete obliteration of the youth and the poor from participation.
“When we raised this concern on several media fora, the party, however, believed the high cost of form will separate the serious contenders from unserious ones.
“This goes contrary to our belief that you can only separate serious contenders from unserious ones by the competency, capacity, credibility, strength of the programme, workable solutions, and sellable candidate to Nigeria through rapid intraparty debates and other high-level criteria reviews that can ensure we present a better leader for future for Nigeria.”
Not done with berating the ruling party’s position, Garba further complained; “We further discovered that even if we went ahead to obtain the form, the party has foreclosed the plan for primary election because of the presence of the request for a Letter of Voluntary withdrawal on page 18 of the nomination form.
“I cannot, in all honesty, rally funds from my supporters in the hope that we will be having a primary election, then sign a postdated letter of voluntary withdrawal from the contest.”
The IT expert, who chided the APC leadership for what he described as several missteps capable of denting its democratic credentials, warned that; “These steps, if not changed, could reverse the gains we’ve made over time and return us back to centrist, sycophantic, patronage-driven unitary systems, a situation we have to avoid at all costs in the interest of the future of Nigeria.”
On what becomes of the N83.2 million already realized for his presidential aspiration, Garba promised that the money would be returned to the original donors.
Similarly, the tech-savvy gentleman said his next political moves would be announced to his supporters and Nigerians in coming days.
