PDP tickets: Many hurdles before aspirants

In this report, LEKE BAIYEWU examines the issues surrounding the restriction of Peoples Democratic Party tickets for elective public offices

President Goodluck Jonathan has been adopted the sole candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party. The ruling party gave an automatic ticket to the President to seek a second term in the 2015 presidential election. The PDP adopted Jonathan as its consensus candidate, when several caucuses in the party, including the Board of Trustees, the National Executive Committee, the National Working Committee, endorsed him unanimously.

While the national leadership of the ruling party went ahead to declare Jonathan as its sole candidate and cancelled its presidential primary, other presidential aspirants had protested that after paying for the nomination and declaration of interest forms none of the documents were issued to them. Despite the payments made to its bank accounts, the party said it had only one copy of each form and they were meant for Jonathan.

One of the PDP presidential aspirants and son of Nigeria’s First Republic Prime Minister, Dr. AbdulJhalil Tafawa-Balewa, had criticised the endorsement of Jonathan by the party, saying the country has become the legendary ‘Animal Farm’ where some animals are more equal than the others.

He advised the Independent National Electoral Commission to make sure every single person who felt he or she could deliver the country was given the opportunity to do so.

Balewa also advised leaders of political parties “and not just the PDP to look very closely at other democracies in the world.”

“We do not need consensus candidacy, what we need is to be heard. Anyone that feels he or she has something to give to this nation should be allowed. I will want PDP to have a rethink over it. I am not conceding to any consensus arrangement. Let’s face the primaries.

“We cannot say we have a democracy and then we go communist at the same time, whereby we say this is the one that we choose; but only a few people do that and not the rest of the country; everybody wants his or her votes to count,” he said.

Later, Tafawa-Balewa and another presidential aspirant, Prof. Akasoba Duke-Abiola, had approached the national secretariat of the party in Abuja on October 28 to purchase the forms but they were turned back.

Tafawa-Balewa stormed the party’s national secretariat with his supporters and bank deposit tellers, with which he had to purchase the forms. The bank tellers indicated that he deposited N22m into the account of the party with Zenith Bank — N20m as nomination fee and another N2m for the expression of interest form.

He claimed to have been told that all other forms were on sale except the presidential nomination and expression of interest forms.

Duke-Abiola, who is one of the widows of the late Chief MKO Abiola, described the action of the party as questionable.

Displaying the bank teller with which she paid N2m into the party’s account, Duke-Abiola wondered why the party would issue her receipts and refused to sell the forms to her.

The presidential aspirant said she was told by the National Chairman of the party, Adamu Mu’azu, and the National Organising Secretary, Abubakar Mustapha, that the party printed only one form.

It would be recalled that Jonathan purchased the forms after he had been declared the candidate of the PDP and after other presidential aspirants had been denied the same form.

The President only declared his intention to seek re-election in 2015 presidential election and that he would pick up his nomination form before the deadline stipulated by the party. He later picked the form on October 30. It was thereafter the party postponed the deadline for the sale of forms by one week.

Two days to the close of the sale of its presidential and other nomination forms, the PDP called on any member interested in the party’s presidential primary to obtain the forms.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, in a statement on Monday, announced that the new deadline had been extended to Thursday.

“All aspirants who paid for nomination forms, including the Presidential form but yet to collect same, should come to the PDP National Secretariat, Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja, with a verifiable evidence of payment for purposes of collection of their forms,” the statement added.

Analysts of the event have said the U-turn made by the party might be to avert an impending legal trouble, should the sale of the forms be closed against those who had paid and were not issued any. To them, the party must have considered the legal implication of such action.

“We know the legal implication of what we did. It was a mistake on our part to have advertised that the presidential forms are available for sale in the first place. The situation became worse when we have even collected money from aspirants and we refused to sell the forms to them. That’s one of the reasons why we changed our mind,” a source in the party had said.

Observers of the development believe the issue was not just about the party trying to protect Jonathan’s candidacy, they are of the view that the party — just like any other party — needs more money to participate in the 2015 general elections and will use all means to maximise its income.

The belief is that none of the other presidential aspirants is a threat to Jonathan, should the PDP hold a primary. However, the “non-refundable” fees to be paid by the aspirants for the party’s forms are of benefit to it, hence the last minute extension of deadline and opening of the race.

The PDP is said to have made more than N3bn from the sales of its forms to interested political office seekers as of Thursday, when the deadline for the purchase expired.

The sale of the forms was originally billed to end October 31, but the party extended it by one week with the hope that more of its members would still purchase the forms.

Each PDP presidential aspirant coughed out N22m for the forms, while each governorship aspirant paid N11m; each senatorial aspirant paid N4.5m and those running for the House of Representatives were asked to pay N2.5m. Those aspiring to go to state Houses of Assembly were charged N1.2m each.

The money realised from the sales of forms would be shared among the three arms of the party — the national secretariat (80 per cent), state chapters (15 per cent) and zonal offices (five per cent).

The bulk of the money — N2.684bn — came from the over 234 governorship aspirants across the country.

Eleven of the 234 governorship aspirants were asked to pay N2m instead of N11m. For 2015, the party charged female aspirants for the expression of interest form, while they got the nomination form for free.

Two male presidential aspirants — Jonathan and Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa-Balewa — paid N22m each for nomination form; the third, Prof. Akasoba Duke-Abiola, a female, paid N2m.

The PDP is not alone in this practice, the opposition All Progressives Congress does likewise.

In the opposition party, the presidential forms are even more expensive. For instance, a presidential aspirant in the party will cough out N27.5m to obtain the expression of interest form and N2.5m for the nomination form.

The APC reportedly has about seven presidential aspirants, four of which are prominent. They include former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari; former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; Governor of Kano State, Rabi’u Kwankwaso; and Publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Sam Nda-Isaiah.

If all the seven aspirants obtained the forms, the APC would have raked in N192.5m from presidential aspirants alone.

Governorship aspirants in the opposition party are to pay N5.5m; senatorial aspirants, N3.3m; House of Representatives, N2.2m; and state House of Assembly membership, N550, 000.

Critics of the two political parties have berated imposition of such huge fees on aspirants. They described it as a form of disenfranchisement of those aspirants who do not have financial strength to pay such fees. According to them, it will further worsen the spate of corruption in public offices.

With the sale of forms to other presidential aspirants, it is expected that the PDP will hold a primary in which other aspirants will contest against Jonathan. The party has yet to announce the date for the exercise.

Aside the race for the presidency, the PDP has also offered automatic second-term tickets to all its incumbent first-term governors. They are those of Bayelsa, Gombe, Kaduna, Kogi and Kebbi states. The implication of this is that other governorship aspirants in the affected states have been schemed out of the race.

Senatorial aspirants in PDP states, where the governor is in the second term, will suffer a similar fate. Several outgoing governors in the ruling party are heading for the Senate, with the automatic ticket said to have been granted to them in exchange for their endorsement of Jonathan as the party’s candidate.

Already, the political situation is becoming tense in states like Enugu, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Plateau, Cross River, among others. The incumbent senators, some of who are principal officers in the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly, are not ready to vacate their seats in compliance with the intra-party arrangements.

In a related development, the Senate had abruptly adjourned sitting on Tuesday, barely 25 minutes after resuming plenary with indications that the senators had adjourned in protest.

The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, had announced that all the PDP members in the Senate would hold an emergency meeting immediately after plenary, while pleading with all members of the caucus to attend the meeting as crucial decisions would be taken.

The sudden adjournment was due to threats by some senators of the PDP to commence impeachment proceeding against Jonathan over the President’s alleged unfair treatment.

Jonathan was said to have angered the senators by the presidential permission allegedly granted to PDP governors to choose their preferred candidates for elections into the legislature, both at the federal and state levels. By so doing, the senators’ political future remains uncertain. Consequently, the lawmakers have vowed to show the President their political relevance and strength.

Indications later emerged that the senators had mandated their leadership to meet with Jonathan and Mu’azu, on their grievance.

Again on Wednesday, the crisis rocking the Senate worsened when the PDP caucus forced the Senate President, David Mark, to adjourn sittings till this week.

-Punchwp_posts

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Posted by admin on Nov 9 2014. Filed under Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry