• We don’t want people without the capacity to fly our flags —Party’s NEC

•Says decision irreversible

Members of the All Progressive Grand Alliance APGA, aspiring for various political offices in the 2023 general elections, have cried out over the high cost of the party’s nomination form and expression of interest form.

According to the aspirants, the development is not only discouraging but frustrating genuine aspirants from actualising their political ambition in the party they have much respect for.

APGA in a recent publication, pegged the expression of interest form for the office of the President for N5 million while its nomination form goes for N20 million, making a total cost of N25 million.

The cost of both forms for governorship is N15 million, while the senate goes for N10 million.

APGA also pegged N7 million for House of Representatives forms while House of Assembly is N2.5 for both forms.

But the grumbling aspirants claimed that the cost of the forms is too exorbitant compared to the amounts set by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as well as the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Some of the complaining aspirants said that the inability of genuine members of the party to afford the exorbitant cost of the forms would create room for “PDP and APC money bags to invade the party and hijack power.”

The aspirants who pleaded anonymity for fear of sanctions appealed to the national leadership of the party to revisit the cost of the forms.

“The effect is that PDP members most of them currently serving members have besieged the party leadership to contest election under the platform of APGA as it is obvious that party faithful in the state cannot afford the amounts set by the National Working Committee of the party.”

One of them said that following the signing of the Electoral Act, 2022, “APGA is seen as the only party that will win the 2023 elections in Abia due to the collapse of APC and unpopularity of PDP which has held onto power for 24 years in the state”.

According to the source, ” the problems bedevilling PDP have compounded the zoning of its governorship position which has polarized party membership in the state.”

The source hinted that other aspirants and concerned party faithful were planning to protest to the national leadership of APGA for quick intervention.

” Not just Abia, other states in the South East are also complaining. The South West, South-South and Northern states may be forced by this unaffordable cost of party forms to dump APGA”, he warned.

He appealed to Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State to wade into the matter in his capacity as the National Leader of APGA.

When contacted, the Deputy National Chairman of APGA (South), Chief Uchenna Okogbuo, said the pegging of the cost of the forms was a collective decision of the party’s NEC, and could not be reversed.

He said the party would not want to make its nomination and expression of interest forms so cheap to avoid giving their tickets to unserious candidates who after securing the ticket, lack the capacity to execute their election.

“We want you to buy our forms and prosecute your election. We don’t want to give our tickets to people who are not strong enough to execute their campaign.

“If we make it so cheap, some people will just come and collect the forms and become sellouts, thereby jeopardizing the interest of the party.

“We also want to avoid a scenario in Abia State in 2015 where we had over 15 members of the party in the state House of Assembly only for them to decamp later. We don’t want to give our tickets to people who when they win the election will easily decamp when they see the money.

“If you want to contest the election, you must have a second address. We can’t give out tickets to every Tom, Dick and Harry who won’t know its value”. (Vanguard)

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