Human rights
lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Saturday, restated his opposition to the sale of
nomination forms to aspirants for elective offices by political parties.
Falana, in
an interview with the Media, threatened to take legal action against political
parties that were still selling nomination forms to aspirants despite previous
court judgments prohibiting such payment.
Falana, had
last week, in Lagos, during the one-day national electoral summit, organised by
the Transition Monitoring Group with support from the United Kingdom’s
Department for International Development, railed against the commercialisation
of nomination forms by political parties.
He regretted
that despite President Muhammadu Buhari expressing disappointment that he took
a loan of N27m to buy the APC nomination form during the 2015 elections, he had
not been able to change the guideline.
Falana took
on the political parties on Saturday while also indicating his intention to sue
them if they continued in the act.
He said,
“The conditions for contesting elections from local government, to the House of
Assembly, governorship, House of Representatives, Senate and presidential
levels, are all in the constitution.
“There are
decisions of the court to the effect that the Independent National Electoral
Commission and state electoral commissions cannot collect fees from candidates
who are contesting elections.
“So, if I am
going to contest election, you can’t ask me to pay N27m as nomination fee
because that is unknown to the constitution.
“Therefore,
the parties cannot decide their own rules. They cannot impose prohibitive rules
that will restrict the participation in the contest of an election to
moneybags.
“Of course,
we may have to sue the political parties if they continue this illegality. We
cannot go on like this.”
He added
that aggrieved aspirants should be encouraged to sue their parties.
“Aggrieved
party members should be encouraged to challenge the prohibitive nomination fees
imposed on aspirants by political parties.
“I believe
any citizen, who meets the requirements outlined in the Constitution, is
qualified to contest any election. Political parties cannot add to the
constitutional requirements.”
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