Political parties have criticised the high charges imposed on their candidates by the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission for the September 21, 2024, local government council elections in the state.
Punch correspondent gathered that KWASIEC asked each party chairmanship aspirant to pay the sum of N350,000 for the form and another N350,000 as tax, making a total of N700,000, while each councillorship aspirant is to obtain the form for the election at N100,000 and pays a tax of N168,000 making a total of N268,000.
The charges, according to KWASIEC, should be paid to the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) by the aspirants.
The Kwara State chapter of the Labour Party described the demand for nomination fees from aspirants by KWASIEC as unconstitutional and a means of depriving other political parties of participating in the forthcoming local government election in the state.
The party’s state Publicity Secretary, Yinka Oladejo, in his reaction, noted that it was not the duty of the electoral umpire to determine the fees for nomination forms for any political party urging it not to deviate from its constitutional right of conducting free, fair and credible elections.
Oladejo said, “It is glaring that KWASIEC is playing the drum as it has been beaten by her custodian, who is trying to stop another political party from participating in the election.”
The Party urged KWASIEC and its officials to take a cue from its Oyo State counterpart that just conducted LGA elections in which no candidate paid any money to the state electoral body while the state government also supported all political parties that participated in the elections financially for logistics.
He said, “The nomination fees would scare people off from contesting in the election, advising it to operate under the electoral act just like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC.)
“It is the responsibility of each party to fix the price for a nomination form, just the way each party was allowed to conduct a free and fair primary for local government elections”, the party explained.
The Youth Leader of the state branch of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Ayinla Luqman, said that the fees charged to the aspirants by KWASIEC were to screen out the aspirants from the local government elections in the state.
Luqman, who said that the NNPP has enough support in the state to win local Council elections, stated that “we have people that are sympathetic to our party to make us win elections in some local Councils, but KWASIEC is using the fees to screen us out of the election.”
However, Alhaji Abdullahi Samari, deputy chairman of the All Progressives Congress, who also doubles as the chairman of the ruling party Election Committee said that KWASIEC must have its reasons for fixing the form fees for the candidates.
Samari, who said that the officials of the Electoral body are professionals in their own field of specialisation, stated that “they must have been working according to the guidelines of the Commission on the local government election.
But the state branch of the Peoples Democratic Party, which is the main opposition party in the state condemned the exorbitant charge placed on the aspirants for the local government Elections by KWASIEC.
Publicity Secretary of PDP in the state, Olusegun Adewara, said, “The high fees charged on the aspirants is condemnable by our party, it is undemocratic. Most of our candidates can’t afford it. It is a ploy to screen out our candidates who are very popular in their respective local government areas out of the election.
Adewara said that PDP in the state had completed all payments for KWASIEC nomination forms for all its chairmanship and Councillorship candidates across the state.
He said, “The payment of twenty-four million, nine hundred thousand naira (N24,900,000) was made to the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), and receipts of payments have been issued to the party’s leadership. They have now proceeded to the KWASIEC office to obtain forms on behalf of all our candidates.
“The PDP noted that, although, by the judgment of Honorable Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, KWASIEC has acted outside the law in imposing fees on its nomination forms, the party remains committed to the forthcoming local government elections in its bid to rescue the people of Kwara from the current hardship and misgovernance.
“In our effort to rescue the people of Kwara from the hardship and misgovernance imposed by the Abdulrahman-led government, we have chosen to endure and comply with their rules to ensure we do not disappoint the people of Kwara, who have long yearned for this election”, he said in a statement.
In his reaction to the allegations, KWASIEC chairman, Mohammed Okanla, said that the fees of N350,000 and N100,000 charged the aspirants for forms were arrived at after extensive consultations with all the existing registered Political parties in the state.
“KWASIEC held an interface with all the political parties, and the form fees were charged based on their suggestions. We also considered the fees charged by the Electoral bodies in other states, including Borno, Bayelsa, Yobe, Oyo, Ekiti and Lagos, to determine the fees we charged for the forms.
Okanla also absolved the Electoral body of attempting to screen out candidates from the local government elections adding that “all necessary information such as Election guidelines and timetable were given to officials of all the political parties during the interface with the political parties.”
“The allegation that we didn’t provide them needed information on the election is a great lie because we personally supplied them with the election guidelines and timetable during the interface with all the political parties”, he said.
The chairman also denied allegations made by some political parties that KWASIEC was broke as the state government has not given it funds to execute the local government election saying that the Electoral body was an agency of government which draws its allocation from the budget.