…Condemns High Cost of Party Nomination Forms
The Not Too Young To Perform (NTYTP) Group, a formidable young people-driven leadership development initiative has urged the National Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, to devise better ways of curbing vote buying rather than ban the use of cell phone at polling stations or voting cubicles.
The body also described the high cost of most political parties’ expression of interest and nomination forms to run for political offices as “a deliberate vehicle deployed by the corrupt managers of such political parties and their looting collaborators to continue to promote incompetence and corruption in the country.”
According a statement issued in Abuja and jointly signed by its Convener, Comrade James Ezema and the National Publicity Secretary, Arc Bello Mohammed, the group, which believes that performance in office must be the basis for all young people to run for elective offices or accept any political appointment, while urging Nigerian youths to vote against candidates of all political parties with costly nomination forms, noted that INEC has to prosecute vote buyers and sellers.
On the high cost of nomination nation forms, the group said that “There is no better way of promoting incompetence and corrupt practices in the polity than the tactical exclusion of incorruptible Nigerians, particularly our vibrant young people from offering themselves to contest elections than the current high cost of relevant forms being sold by most political parties.
“In as much as we know that cost of elections anywhere in the world is expensive, the deliberate hike in costs of expression of interest and nomination forms by political parties is doing more harm to Nigeria than we imagine.
“How would such aspirant effectively fight corruption, particularly if such benevolent associates are involved in a graft or abuse of office because as they say, ‘one good turn deserves another’?
“The only choice young people have is to vote against such political parties as we are now more afraid than ever that political power will remain in the hands of looters and in permanent control of their “rich” offspring and associates at the expense of performance in office”, the group bemoaned.
