The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has made more than N3bn from the sales of its nomination and expression of interest forms to interested political office seekers since the commencement of the exercise, which ends Thursday (tomorrow).
It was learnt that the sale of the forms was initially scheduled to be over on Friday, November 7, 2014, but an extra one week was added by the party authorities who hope that most of the members would pick the forms.
According to the charges, Presidential aspirants nomination forms were sold at the rate of N22 million whereas the governorship candidates all paid N11 million to obtain the forms.
In addition, senatorial aspirants forms was sold for N4.5million,the House of Representatives aspirants all paid the sum of N2.5million each while the aspirants of the state Houses of Assembly, were charged N1.2million each.
Meanwhile, there was a little change in routine as the party charged female aspirants for the expression of interest forms excluded them from paying for nomination forms.
It was learnt that the party is expected to share the money it made from the sales among their three arms in the order of national secretariat (80 per cent), state chapters (15 per cent) while the zonal offices are to receive five per cent.
Furthermore, “it was gathered that the bulk of the money made is however from the over 234 governorship aspirants across the country. The party was said to have made N2.684bn from them.”
However, 11 of the aspirants are females while the rest are males.
So far, only two aspirants have paid the mandatory N22million for presidential nomination forms which included President Goodluck Jonathan and Dr. Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa-Balewa.
The third presidential aspirant in the party, Prof. Akasoba Duke-Abiola, a female, paid N2million.
Many aspirants, such as governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and others, were said to have picked up their forms from their states after the payment of the stipulated sum.
The party, in a notice signed by the National Organising Secretary, Alhaji Abubakar Mustapha, to the members of the party, said political office seekers were free to pick up their forms from their state chapters of the party.
He, however, insisted that such aspirants must show evidence of payment of the prescribed fees for the office such an aspirant is seeking.
Information from the party secretariat indicated that Imo State had the highest number of governorship hopefuls with 19 aspirants including three females.
Delta State is second, with 18 governorship aspirants, but three of them are also females.
One of the party officials among those responsible for the sale of the forms said, “This is the best period” for the party. We are not only making money, we are happy to be here.”
According to the party’s state Organising Secretary, Mr. Michael Dachom, over 150 aspirants of the party in Plateau State have also picked nomination forms to contest in the 2015 general elections.
He revealed to journalists in Jos on Monday, November 3, 2014, that eleven aspirants, including the current Deputy Governor, Ignatius Longjan, picked forms for governorship, while 40 others were for National Assembly and 100 for state assembly seats.
