Politico Politico News
The Not-Too-Young-To-Run Movement on Monday said Nigeria’s democracy was not delivering its dividends adequately due to “money bag politics’’.
A member of the group, Hamzat Lawal, stated this to journalist in Abuja at the National Day of Action on Youth Candidacy and Democratic Party Primaries briefing.
According to Lawal, it is quite sad that in Nigeria’s political history, money bags and `god father’ is really affecting the nation.
“This is why we have not enjoyed the dividends of democracy and good governance.
“As a movement, that is why we have now highlighted intended cost for picking nomination forms which is N2, 000, 000 for presidential aspirant, N1, 000, 000 for governorship aspirant and N600, 000 for senatorial aspirant.
“For house of assembly aspirant, the form should be N200, 000 while that of House of Representatives aspirant should be N400, 000.
“We need to try as much as possible to ensure that election is not all about money because we know that to the money bags, election is an investment.’’
Lawal said that the money bags often put money into campaigns so that they could recuperate it after election.
He said that Not-Too-Young-To-Run Movement and youths were now aware of the money politics, adding that “we are working with women group to ensure that money does not play a critical role in 2019,’’ he said.
He said that this was because if money played a role, the money bags would want to recoup their investment post 2019 and it meant therefore, that Nigerians would not have quality welfare.
Lawal said that the group would monitor closely how money would exchange hands in 2019 and warned that if it did, the people involved would be exposed.
Nana Nwachukwu, another member of the group, said that the movement was optimistic about competent young men and women emerging as aspirants for the 2019 elections.
Nwachukwu said that the signing into law of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Bill addressed a major impediment to youth participation in politics.
She said that while it was a remarkable feat, the goal of achieving increased youth representation in elective offices would remain a dream if other barriers were not removed.
