Story Written By Abdullahi Jalaluddeen and Edited by Godwin Duru
Following complains from various political parties in Kano State on the cost of nomination forms, the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) says there is no going back on the fixed amounts for elective positions.
Reacting on the concerns by the political parties, the Executive Chairman of the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC), Professor Sani Lawan Malumfashi affirmed that, the decisions on the N10m and N5m nomination forms are final.
He noted that the Commission has already taken an independent decision on the matter.
“There is no going back on the amount earlier announced.”He said.
“We are not going to change or reduce it, there is no going back. It’s already in our guidelines and already a law to us”.
“It is not about encouraging money politics, everything is not the way it is now. We are also going to spend huge amounts, the materials and everything we are going to use must cost money so we are going to bear the cost too”.
“It may surprised you to know that, those complaining bitterly are the officials of NNPP party, the ruling party. We said very clear, in view of the inflation rate in this country, it has affected virtually everything because nothing in the market is free now”.
Sani Malumfashi noted that, the Commission has taken into cognizance the population of voters in Kano which and election materials must be sufficient for the them on the election day.
“Kano state is one state equals to three with 44 LGA’S, 484 wards, 11022 polling units, over 6 million voters and we are recruiting over thirty thousand adhoc staff and we are claiming independent, if we are dependent on the Government, tell me how independent we are going to be.”.
The Kano Electoral body had set October 1st as the date for the commencement of sales of forms and October 18th as the date for submission of all completed forms.
The state electoral body had recently announced that, candidates vying for Chairmanship positions will pay the sum of N10 million to obtain nomination forms while candidates aspiring for Councilorship positions will have to pay N5 million.
ABDULLAHI JALALUDDEEN
