APC’s N5m Trap, PDP’s post-Convention Claptrap, Anambra’s Valedictory Slap

Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), earlier in the week commenced the sale of forms to aspirants contesting for various offices in its National Working Committee (NWC). Reports said the party’s leadership at its 25th regular meeting on Monday agreed and adopted a schedule of activities ahead of its National Convention.

The leadership of the party consequently rolled out fees for different offices.

A document being circulated in the media showed that the ruling party pegged the cost of form for its chairmanship seat at N20 million while aspirants vying for deputy chairmanship seats are expected to obtain their form with the sum of N10 million each. Zonal chairmen and other offices, including youth leaders, are expected to pay the sum of N5 million each. As a bait, the party said that women and physically challenged aspirants would have 50% of the amount for the positions slashed.

The APC’s prices for nomination forms, including the N5m for youth leader, remains a trap that speaks to some of the issues behind the exclusion of young Nigerians in party politics.

In 2019, according to statistics, about 43.69 percent of Nigeria’s total population were aged 0 to 14. In Nigeria, half of the population is aged under 19 years.

Skyrocketed prices, impoverished people

With galloping inflation, only two per cent of Nigerians have up to N500,000 (about $1,100) in their bank accounts since the average Nigerian spends nearly 100 per cent of their wages on food alone. Meanwhile, the standard of living in Nigeria has been on a steady decline for decades. The average monthly salary of an average Nigerian is N43,200 (circa $104.98), while the minimum wage sits at N30,000 ($72.90).

In effect, with the N5m price tag, the average Nigerian youth cannot aspire to be chairman or youth leader of the ruling party.

But the huge cost of nomination forms, which forms a part of the larger narrative on the huge cost of electioneering, has equally been a source of concern to established politicians, including even elected officials.

When the fee for the 2020 governorship election was announced, the incumbent governor lamented the huge cost of nomination form.  “I screamed that it was too much and that I did not have the money,” Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, who was the APC candidate in the 2020 gubernatorial election, had said.

Earlier in 2019, The youth wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had asked the leadership of the ruling party to reduce the price of nomination forms for young people seeking to contest elections. In 2019, the price of APC nomination forms for offices of the president, governor, senator and house of representatives were N40 million, N22.5 million, N7 million and N3.5 million, respectively.

Interestingly, despite announcing waivers for female participants, none of the 5 leading candidates vying for the position of national chairman is female.

As the nation therefore awaits the party’s convention and announcement of nomination forms for elections, it’s instructive that the promise of youth inclusion remains a trap for the average Nigerian young person willing to participate in partisan politics.

Post-Convention Claptrap

The opposition PDP, which received accolades for the emergence of a 25-year-old truly youthful (youth) leader at its last convention, came with a claptrap days ago. It was as though it was in competition with the APC in stifling opportunities meant for young people.

Following its 95th National Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, the party pegged its nomination and expression of interest forms for presidential aspirants at a whopping N40m.

The party also announced that State House of Assembly expression of interest form has been pegged at N100, 000, with nomination form pegged at N500, 000. For House of Representatives, expression of interest form was pegged at N500, 000, and the nomination form was N2m. The Senate expression of interest was pegged at N500, 000, and nomination form was N3m while the governorship expression of interest was N1m with the nomination form pegged at N20m!

What this means is that recruitment into political offices, to a large extent, depends solely on money, especially from those who have access to illicit finance.

In effect, despite the signing of the Not-Too-Young-To-Run-Bill into law, this isn’t the best of times to be a young aspirant in the two major parties.

And for the PDP, a party that received some accolades months ago, it was a claptrap.

Inaugural or Valedictory Slap?

On Thursday, there was drama at the inauguration of Charles Soludo as the new governor of Anambra State as widow of the late Odumegwu Ojukwu, Bianca Ojukwu was engaged in a fisticuff with the wife of former Governor of Anambra State, Ebelechukwu Obiano.

The incident occurred immediately after Mr Soludo took his oath of office and as expected, Nigerian social media was abuzz with stories of the fight between the two women. While many chastised the former governor’s wife for allegedly triggering the “assault”, others pilloried Bianca for unleashing violence on the former first lady.

Sadly, the unfortunate incident has taken the shine off the actual event, including Mr Soludo’s brilliant speech. It has equally relegated news of Mr Obiano’s subsequent arrest by the EFCC to the background.

The major newspapers reported that it was Bianca who slapped Ebele, and others said it was Ebele who slapped Bianca. The consensus was that there was a slap, but little is being said about the violence recorded in the process.

When Does A Slap Become Violent?

Violence against women remains a major public health and psychological concern that the world is grappling with. It can come in form of femicide, trafficking, genital mutilation or cyberbullying, among other physical assaults— including a slap.

Statistics show that 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male partner.

Last December, a United Nations Women report revealed that forty-eight per cent of Nigerian women have experienced at least one form of violence since the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted in 13 countries including Albania, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand, Ukraine. It showed that exposure to violence was highest among women in Kenya (80%), Morocco (69%), Jordan (49%), and Nigeria (48%). In May, Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Sen. Pauline Tallen, said 30 per cent of women and girls between the ages of 15-49 experience different forms of sexual abuse.

A news report said on Thursday that the Police was not investigating the Bianca-Ebelechukwu incident because it had not been reported. Interestingly, the fracas occurred in the full glare of a battery of Policemen!

In a way, it shows that since both Bianca and Ebelechukwu are women, it is difficult to place the conversation in the right context.

Conversations on how to place women-against-women violence are often fluid. A United Nations’ recent study said that most violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands or intimate partners, all men. More than 640 million women aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence (26 per cent of women aged 15 and older).

Again, the social class of both women become a problematic part of the discourse. One (Bianca) was a former beauty pageant and wife of a respected Igbo leader. The other (Ebele) is the wife of a former governor.  Data from the UN says that violence against women disproportionately affects low- and lower-middle-income countries and regions, and by extension, lower class people. A study said that thirty-seven (37) per cent of women aged 15 to 49 living in countries classified by the Sustainable Development Goals as “least developed” have been subject to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their life.

Invariably, as can be deduced from the studies, because both women are of the upper class, the conversation becomes a little bit more awkward.

But in all, what many have agreed to in the midst of the melee is that there was violence in Anambra.

The big question remains: when does a slap by a woman against another woman graduate into violence against women—and when should it be treated as such?