Senate Pegs Presidential Nomination Fee At N10m, N5m For Governors

The move came with the Electoral Act No 6 2010 (Amendment) Bill 2017 which has stagnated in the Senate for over 10 years.

It is expected that when signed into law, it will abolish arbitrary fees for nomination forms fixed by political parties.

President Muhammadu Buhari as an aspirant under the All Progressives Congress (APC) said he borrowed N25 million in order to buy his party’s own nomination form,

SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BILL
· “There shall now be full biometric accreditation of voters with smart card readers and/or other technological devices, as INEC may introduce for elections from time to time.”

· “Presiding officers must now instantly transmit accreditation data and results from polling units to various collation centres. Presiding officer who contravene this shall be imprisoned for at least five years (no option of fine).

· “All presiding officer must now first record accreditation data and polling results on INEC’s prescribed forms before transmitting them. The data/result recorded must be the same with what they transmitted”.

· A political party whose candidate dies after commencement of an election and before the declaration of the result of that election now has a 14-day window to conduct a fresh primary in order for INEC to conduct a fresh election within 21 days of the death of the party’s candidate.

· Political parties’ polling agents are now entitled to inspect originals of electoral materials before commencement of election and any presiding officer who violates this provision of the law shall be imprisoned for at least one year.

· No political party can impose qualification/disqualification criteria, measures or conditions on any Nigerian for the purpose of nomination for elective offices, except as provided in the 1999 constitution.

· The election of a winner of an election can no longer be challenged on grounds of qualification, if he, the (winner) satisfied the applicable requirements of sections 65, 106, 131 or 177 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), and he is not, as may be applicable, in breach of sections 66, 107, 137 or 182 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. (For example, a person’s election cannot be challenged on the grounds that he did not pay tax, as this is not a qualifying condition under the constitution.)

· Parties can no longer impose arbitrary nomination fees on political aspirants. The bill passed prescribes limits for each elective office as follows:

(a) N150, 000 for a ward councillorship aspirant in the FCT;
(b) N250, 000 for an area council chairmanship aspirant in the FCT;
(c) N500, 000 for a house of assembly aspirant;
(d) N1, 000, 000 for a house of representatives aspirant;
(e) N2, 000, 000 for a senatorial aspirant;
(f) N5, 000, 000) for a governorship aspirant; and
(g) N10, 000, 000) for a presidential aspirant.