The ruling All Progressives Party (APC) in an apparent move to allow for more aspirants and equally raise funds for the party, has extended the deadline for the sales of its nomination and expression of interest forms for the second time.
Recall the APC on May 4, 2022 had earlier extended the forms sales from May 6 to May 10, 2022 which was yesterday.
According to reports, the ruling party leaders held a meeting after the May 10 deadline. The outcome of the meeting revealed that the sale of APC nomination and expression of interest forms have been extended to Thursday May 12, 2022.
With this development, aspirants who had already bought forms are now expected make submission on or before Friday May 13, 2022.
This has also affected the party’s timetable. The governorship primaries have now been shifted to May 20 while that of the House of Assembly is May 22. The primaries for Senate and House of Representatives are now May 24 and 25 respectively.
The party who has come under criticisms since announcing the price of its forms, especially the presidential forms which goes for N100,000,000 had said its forms are not for poor people or unserious aspirants.
Before the end of the May 10 deadline, the party had generated nothing less than N3 billion from sales of the presidential forms only and a tune of about N20 billion from gubernatorial, senatorial, and representatives nomination forms.
The party despite generating the most of any political parties in the country is said have made the move to allow more aspirants have room to purchase the forms and in turn make more sales.
Also according to reports, the party is extending the date amid rumour that former president, Goodluck Jonathan will be picking forms to run for president under the APC.
Recall that on Monday May 9, 2022, Jonathan who had a meeting with APC National chairman, Abdullahi Adamu rejected the N100m presidential forms bought for him by a group called Nomadic Herders and Almajiris Community in Nigeria.
However, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, also a presidential aspirant under APC, said the participation of Jonathan in the party’s presidential primaries this month would be another wonder of the world as it will be difficult for the ruling party to sell the former president to Nigerians.
Amidst the APC extension of forms deadline, an aspirant of the party, Adamu Garba had withdrew from the race accusing APC of commercializing the country’s political space.
This was after he was able to generated the APC N100,000,000 presidential forms. He had though generated N83.2 million in private and online donations, which he promised to refund to the donors.
Meanwhile, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has insisted that the June 3 primary elections deadline is non negotiable in reaction to political parties seeking the electoral body for extension.
