September 11, new date for sale, submission of APC nomination forms

By Chizitelu Munachimso

The leadership of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has fixed September 11, 2018 as new deadline for the purchase and submission of presidential, governorship, National Assembly and House of Assembly forms, a statement by Yekini Nabena, the party’s Acting National Publicity Secretary, said in a statement on Friday.

No reason was given for the extension of the deadline from the previous date of Monday, September 10, 2018.

The statement advised all aspirants for the listed positions to submit their duly completed forms to the party’s national secretariat and the party’s state Secretariat in the case of House of Assembly on or before the close of work on the new deadline.

This latest directive is coming days after the party asked its members aspiring for the House of Assembly who are finding it difficult to purchase Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms in their states, to purchase them in Abuja.

The directive, which came via statement by Nabena directed affected aspirants to go the Party’s National Secretariat in Abuja to collect the forms after making necessary payments at designated banks.

Before that directice, the APC had on Tuesday released timetable for the party’s primaries and fixed the costs of purchase of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms.

According to information made available by Emma Ibediro, the party’s National Organising Secretary of the party, a presidential aspirant will pay N45 million to obtain the two forms-N5 million for Express of Interest form and N40 million for the nomination form.

The party said both the presidential and vice-presidential candidate will pay the same amount while a discount of 50 percent will be given to female members of the party.

Aspirants for the governorship posts are expected to pay N22.5 million for both expression of interest and nomination forms. While the latter costs N20 million, the expression of interest form costs N2.5 million.

House of assembly aspirants will pay N850,000 while aspirants into the house of representatives are to pay N3.8 million and the senate, N7 million.

Ibediro said the sale of nomination and expression of interest forms for all elective offices would commence on September 5 and end five days later. All forms are expected to be submitted not later than September 12.

The party’s congress will hold on September 12 nationwide to elect delegates for its primaries.

September 13 and 14 have been fixed to hear appeals that may arise from the congress while September 15 to 18 will be for the screening of aspirants that purchased forms.

“All forms are to be collected and submitted on or before Wednesday Sept.12, 2018,” he said.

Appeals that may arise from the screening of aspirants will be heard from September 19 to 20.

Presidential primaries will take place on September 20 while appeal that may arise from the conduct will be heard on September 22.

September 25 has been fixed for the party’s governorship primaries while September 26 to 27 has been fixed for the hearing of appeal that may arise from the conduct.

September 28 to 30 was fixed for the hearing of appeals that may arise from all legislative primaries.

The national convention will take place on October 6 to ratify the party’s candidate for the 2019 presidential election.