The All Progressives Congress (APC) has raked in over N29billion from the sale of expression of interest and nomination forms to various categories of aspirants seeking its ticket to run for the 2023 general elections.
The ruling party had pegged its presidential forms at N100million, governorship, N50million, senatorial, N20 million and N10million for House of Representatives aspirants.
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The national organising secretary of the party, Sulaiman Argungu, told newsmen yesterday in Abuja that 145 aspirants bought governorship forms, 351 obtained forms to contest senatorial primaries, 1,197 picked forms for the House of Representatives, while 28 presidential aspirants also obtained forms.
The party made N2.8 billion from the sale of presidential forms to 28 aspirants, N7.2m for 145 governorship aspirants, N7m for senatorial aspirants and N11. 9m from the House of Representatives aspirants, amounting to over N29billion as of Saturday.
Argungu said, “So far, we have 145 governorship aspirants. We have constituted three panels to screen them. We have 351 aspirants that have picked and returned the senatorial aspiration forms, while we have 1,197 aspirants for the House of Representatives, with 10 panels. So far, we have 28 presidential aspirants.
“The panels for the Senate are going to be four. In addition to that, we have the guidelines of our great party that will be given to each of the panels for screening, and indeed, the appeal committee. We also have a set of guidelines, aspirant assessment and verification form that will be given to each of the committees for the screening.”
He said the screening of presidential aspirants has been fixed for May 23rd.
Meanwhile, the party has inaugurated a committee to screen aspirants on its platform for the primaries ahead of the 2023 general polls.
Inaugurating the committee on Saturday in Abuja, the deputy national chairman of the party (North), Senator Abubakar Kyari, who stood in for the national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, said that the party was determined to field credible candidates for the 2023 polls.
He said the screening would be thorough so that the party would field the best candidates to win the elections.