The Social Democratic Party said the high cost of nomination and expression of interest forms had shown that the APC was a party that was neither youth friendly nor considerate about the realities of today’s Nigeria.
The National Publicity Secretary of the SDP, Alfa Mohammed, said this in a telephone interview with News men on Wednesday.
He said, “We are not surprised that the APC has put such an outrageous amount of money as fees for its forms. We have said it several times that the APC intends to rig the forthcoming elections by inducing voters.
“And to do that, they need a lot of money. One of the means of getting such money is to levy their aspirants heavily.
“Otherwise, how did (President Muhammadu) Buhari pay for his nomination form in 2014?
“Even then people had to rally round and donate before he was able to purchase his own. We are talking of Not-too-Young-to-Run, how do you expect young persons, most of whom are unemployed, to raise such outrageous fees?
“It is an indication also that they are anti -youths, they are anti-masses, they do not have the interest of the masses at heart, and they are not concerned about credible leadership. They do not want credible people to participate in the election.”
Speaking in a similar vein, the National Chairman of the United Peoples Party, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said the cost was quite high and was obviously outside of the reach of most Nigerians.
He, however, said, “The good thing is that we have over 90 political parties, people who have what it takes and feel they are popular can exploit other platforms to realise their political goals of providing service to the people.”
