Supporters and members of the public are coming together to purchase forms for rich politicians. It’s the oldest trick in the book but it’s still so sad. As you read this, President Muhammadu Buhari has just received a N45million presidential nomination form gift from a group of supporters, at an elaborate ceremony held inside the nation’s presidential villa in Abuja. “Just now at the State House I was presented with the APC Presidential Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms, by the Nigeria Consolidation Ambassadors Network (NCAN). A mixture of familiar faces, as well as new ones, united by a common vision of a secure prosperous Nigeria”, Buhari said. On August 31, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar broke down in tears when another group of “very good Nigerians” purchased the PDP nomination form for him for N12million. On September 4, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu announced that a group had purchased the PDP’s N3.5million senatorial nomination form for him. “My people, the good people of Enugu West Senatorial District, including the Enugu West Peoples Assembly, members of the National Assembly, Council Chairmen, members of the Enugu State Executive Council, Enugu State Chapter of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, leaders of the PDP from Enugu West, among others, gave me a surprise on Sunday.”They presented to me the PDP nomination form for the Senate, which they purchased for me, requesting that I return to the Senate in 2019. “My people, my primary employers have spoken. I have no choice than to humbly accept to run for the senate again”, Ekweremadu announced.On Monday, September 10, a group consisting of cattle traders, Sheikh Gumi Market Association, and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria purchased for Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, the APC nomination form to seek re-election in 2019, for N22.5million. In Niger State, a group of traders purchased the N22.5million APC nomination form for Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello. Sycophants have taken over the landThe cycle is the same. A politician is reluctant to run for office or seek re-election, his supporters besiege and cajole him into changing his mind because he is indispensable, he accepts to run, they purchase exorbitant election nomination form for him. Rinse. Repeat. All of a sudden, politicians who have been in office for as long as you and I can remember; who have signed billion Naira budgets and dispensed patronage however they deemed fit, who have been around government circles before the advent of democracy in 1999, who have in one way or the other looted the country dry, do not have money to purchase nomination forms for themselves. All of a sudden, Buhari, who finally became democratic president in 2015 at the fourth time of asking, and whose APC presidential nomination form was purchased for him by another group ahead of the 2015 general elections, has to rely on goodwill from yet another group to return as president–just to echo stereotypes of an ascetic, sandal-wearing, spartan president. A case of misplaced priorities for form buyersThe joke indeed writes itself in Nigeria. I would have expected that these ‘form buyers’ would be holding aloft placards protesting the outrageous costs of nomination forms from the two major political parties in the land. In the era of ‘Not-too-young-to-run’, young people should be reprimanding the political class for keeping political offices out of the reach of everyone else but themselves with criminal fees. Instead, these young people are purchasing nomination forms for their oppressors. One would have expected these Nigerians who have pooled millions of Naira to purchase forms for politicians who really don’t need their help, to put all of that money to better use for themselves and their families who are groaning under the weight of the poor policies dished out by these same politicians. At the crux of these form purchasing galore is sycophancy at its galling worst, vested interests and deceit by the political class. For all we know, the form purchases are only but smokescreens from the so called beneficiaries. In a roundabout way, we are being told that these expensive nomination forms are gifts from supporters when that may not be the case. Deceitful and manipulative politicians that they are, they continue to pull the wool over the eyes of suffering Nigerians.To purchase forms or pretend to purchase forms for politicians who have pillaged this country through the decades, is some worrisome Stockholm syndrome. It’s the oldest trick in the book you may say, but it still leaves one fuming. And it says a lot when supposedly decent politicians who flaunt values like integrity, honesty and accountability at every turn, accept over-priced nomination forms from faceless groups with no questions asked.
