Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has threatened to drag the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and other parties to court over the sale of nomination form to aspirants in the 2019 election.
The senior lawyer insisted that previous court judgments have prohibited such payment.
His reaction followed PDP’s decision to sell nomination forms for N12 million to its presidential candidates for the 2019 election.
Falana blamed President Muhammadu Buhari for his inability to change the guideline despite expressing disappointment that he took a loan of N27m to buy the APC nomination form during the 2015 elections.
He told Punch: “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.
“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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