Editorial: High Party Nomination Fees threaten Nigeria's Democracy

Nigeria’s political parties have perfected a quiet, devastating art: turning democracy into a luxury commodity. The latest example arrived last week when the African Democratic Congress (ADC) released its timetable for the 2026 primaries; and with it, a price list that reads less like an invitation to public service and more like an auction sale catalogue. A presidential nomination form will cost ₦100 million. Governorship: ₦50 million. Senate: ₦20 million. House of Representatives: ₦10 million. State Assembly: ₦3 million. These are not fees. They are barricades. And they send a message as clear as it is corrosive: Nigeria’s democracy is not for citizens; it is for the wealthy who can afford to buy their way in.

Parties often defend these astronomical figures as necessary for “serious aspirants,” “internal orderliness,” or “funding party operations.” But no amount of bureaucratic language can disguise the truth. When the price of entry into public office is set at levels unreachable for the vast majority of Nigerians, the result is not democracy. It is exclusion dressed up as procedure.

 

Nigeria is a country where millions survive on less than ₦1,000 a day. Where unemployment and underemployment remain stubbornly high. Where young people; the supposed beneficiaries of discounted nomination fees, struggle to access capital, education, and stable income. Against this backdrop, a ₦100 million form is not just excessive. It is obscene. It ensures that only those with access to political godfathers, wealthy patrons, or questionable sources of funding can contest for the highest offices. It entrenches a political class insulated from the economic realities of the people it claims to represent. And it reinforces a cycle in which public office becomes an investment to be recouped, not a responsibility to be fulfilled.

 

The ADC, like other parties before it, has introduced concessions: 50% off for youths, 25% off for women and persons with disabilities. These gestures are well intentioned, but they do not solve the underlying problem. A 50% discount on ₦100 million is still ₦50 million; a figure that excludes 99% of Nigerian youths. A 25% discount on ₦50 million still leaves women and persons with disabilities facing a ₦37.5 million barrier to contesting governorship. These are not concessions. They are reminders of how far removed the political process has become from the lived experience of ordinary Nigerians.

 

High nomination fees are not merely administrative decisions. They shape the entire political landscape: they limit competition, ensuring that only the wealthy or well connected can run; they distort incentives, encouraging aspirants to seek funding from vested interests; they undermine accountability, because candidates who spend tens of millions to secure nominations often enter office beholden to financiers, not voters; and they weaken representation, shutting out teachers, civil servants, activists, entrepreneurs, and community leaders who cannot afford the price of admission. A democracy that prices out its citizens is a democracy in name only.

 

Nigeria’s political parties have, over time, normalized a system in which money not ideas, not competence, not public service, determines who gets to stand for election. The result is a political class that reproduces itself through wealth, patronage, and access. This is not an accident. It is a design.

And it is a design that has hollowed out the promise of democracy: government of the people, by the people, for the people. When the cost of contesting elections becomes prohibitive, the people are no longer participants. They are spectators. The effects of monetized politics are everywhere: vote buying has become a normalized feature of elections. Public office is treated as a revenue generating asset, not a public trust. Policy debates are shallow, because candidates are selected for their financial muscle, not their ideas. Corruption thrives, because officeholders seek to recover campaign expenditures. These are not abstract concerns. They are daily realities that shape governance, service delivery, and public trust.

 

If democracy is to mean anything in Nigeria, political participation must be accessible. Nomination forms should not cost more than the average citizen will earn in a lifetime. Parties should not operate as exclusive clubs for the wealthy. And the electoral process should not be structured to reward money over merit. Nigeria urgently needs: statutory caps on nomination fees across all political parties; transparent party financing rules that reduce reliance on aspirants’ personal wealth; public funding mechanisms tied to internal democracy and inclusivity, and independent oversight to ensure that parties do not circumvent regulations through “expression of interest” fees or other hidden charges. Democracy cannot flourish when the gatekeepers are selling the keys.

 

Nigeria stands at a crossroads. The country cannot continue to preach democratic ideals while erecting financial barriers that exclude the very people democracy is meant to empower. Nomination forms priced in the tens of millions are not just unaffordable. They are undemocratic. They silence the poor, marginalize the young, and entrench a political elite disconnected from the struggles of ordinary citizens. If Nigeria is serious about building a democracy that works, it must begin by dismantling the financial walls that keep its citizens out. Until then, elections will remain what they have increasingly become: contests among the wealthy, funded by the wealthy, for the benefit of the wealthy, with the people watching from the sidelines.