The All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership has been criticised by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) for allegedly demonstrating traits of a secret cult fraternity or cartel.
HURIWA has expressed surprise at the announcement that the party’s presidential nomination form for the 2023 election will cost N100 million.
According to the organisation, it is unthinkable that a Nigerian citizen who earned his money via legal ways could afford to squander N100 million simply because he or she wants to serve the people of Nigeria.
“Only political rogues, drug-dealing criminals, or anybody involved in armed robbery or kidnappings for ransom can afford to gamble away such a lifelong wealth,” the report claimed.
Anyone who buys a nomination form for such a scandalous amount of money, according to the rights group, should first be arrested by citizens, if possible, under the law permitting citizen arrest, before being handed over to law enforcement agencies such as the EFCC, ICPC, or Police for an investigation into the source of the money.
HURIWA also warned that the APC’s irrational and criminally minded rationale for raising the cost of presidential nomination forms to such a colossal amount will inevitably affect the value of the Naira, given that economic saboteurs who had syphoned public funds and stored the stolen money in dollar-denominated currency will now bring them out to search for N100 million equivalence of the stolen dollars from public coffers to buy presidential nomination forms.
The Rights group is also concerned that banks may give depositors’ money to “these power-hungry filthy politicians to gamble away in buying the nomination form at the All Progressives Congress’s Secretariat, since seeking to serve Nigerians in the thinking of these misguided party leaders has become a MONEY GUZZLING VENTURE OR A PONZI SCHEME’.
“We had just finished carpeting the opposition Peoples Democratic Party for sabotaging the process of nominating its presidential candidate by inflating the cost of the nomination form to a princely sum of N40 million, little did we know that the politicians who run the Federal Government and have ruined the national economy would peg theirs at the extravagant cost of N100 million just to spite the opposition politicians and to make fun of Nigerians as captives who assassinated their own president.”
HURIWA issued a statement, which was signed by Emmanuel Onwubiko.
“This same APC government is unable to meet federal university funding obligations, leaving millions of public school students stranded at home due to a two-month-long strike by university teachers (ASUU), yet politicians have hidden enough stolen money to buy presidential forms for N100 million each.”
“It’s a pity that individuals seeking to run Nigeria are forced to spend so much money on paperwork only to signify their true intentions as people whose only goal is to recuperate their massive investments and further impoverish the public.”
“We urge Nigerians to commence citizen arrests of anyone who purchases an APC Presidential form for N100 million, so that these individuals may explain their source of such vast sums of money to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.”
The APC announced on Wednesday that presidential nomination forms will cost N100 million, governorship nomination forms will cost N50 million, Senate nomination forms will cost N20 million, House of Representatives nomination forms will cost N10 million, and State Houses of Assembly nomination forms will cost N2 million.
The Television
