Anger trails N5 billion benchmark requirement for NDC governorship aspirants

Governorship aspirants of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, are expressing anger over the Senator Sam Egwu-led Screening Committee that has put a benchmark of N5 billion for a governorship aspirant’s bank account for a pass.

The Committee which began screening after their inauguration on Monday screened its sole presidential aspirant, Mr Peter Obi on Tuesday, but governorship aspirants were not that lucky as the Committtee insisted on proof of N5 billion in bank account for any governorship aspirants to scale through screening.

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Investigation by CAPITAL POST on Wednesday indicated that the decision was anachronistic to a newly registered political party and an opposition struggling to register its presence in the democratic record for the first.

Speaking with CAPITAL POST on Wednesday in Abuja, a governorship aspirant from the South South region described the development as ‘high handedness’, noting that such humongous benchmark was not contemplated in the Electoral Amendment Acts or the Constitution of the Nigeria Democratic Congress.

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According to him, NDC is an opposition political party and shouldn’t behave like a ruling party, where government in power dictates whatever they like. The party should show a good example of how internal democracy works. It should be attractive to people with passion for good governance instead of party where money determines who gets what.

He added that, not withstanding the fact that aspirants trooped into the NDC lately, anyone contesting governorship must have had financial muscle to run his electioneering campaign, hence, the idea of N5 billion evidence will not be in the interest of a newly formed party that is struggling to unseat the ruling party.

“You see, we are in NDC because of injustice, we are in NDC because of arrogance of the All Progressives Congress, APC and the NDC should be home to all of us and liberal in handling us. NDC should not make the contest to favour only the highest bidder.

“Even the APC that is the ruling party never contemplated such a huge benchmark as part of requirement to contest governorship.

“The screening is scheduled for Thursday and we are preparing and trying to beat INEC time. I don’t think this will be acceptable and the screening committee should try to de-emphasize financial clout and rather elevate acceptability and electability so that we can move ahead. It is common knowledge that anyone who is running for political position such as governorship should make provision for funding.

Political parties have submitted registers to INEC and the window of defection and crosscarpeting has closed, so the NDC should reconsider the decision before we face the Committee tomorrow.

Meanwhile, several calls and text message to Senator Sam Egwu was not replied.

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