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By Joseph Erunke, ABUJA

SENATOR Chris Adighije has defended the cost of the All Progressives Congress,APC’s presidential nomination forms which the party put at N100 million.

The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council, Federal University of Lokoja, Kogi State, insisted that contrary to some criticisms that have so far trailed the cost of the forms,the ruling party did not do anything wrong.

Adighije,a chieftain of the party, speaking to reporters in Abuja,said the cost of the forms was a measure by his. party to access support base of presidential aspirants under its fold.

His position came as some party faithful said the high cost of the party’s nomination forms has both the positive and negative implications on the nation’s political space.

Açcording to him,any aspirant of APC that raises the nomination forms money on his own to contest for any ticket has no business in that contest as it shows that he has no support base.

Since APC announced the cost of its Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms, some persons have criticized the cost, stating that it will breed corruption.

They have also argued that such nomination fee would scale away aspirants with potentials to lead.

Former governor of Cross River State and Chieftain of APC, Clement Ebri had kicked against the cost of the forms, noting that such nomination fee had shown that the ruling party had become “a party of the wealthy, for the wealthy and by the wealthy.”

“Are we not inadvertently making the APC a party of wealthy by the wealthy for the wealthy? This last question has deep implications for a party that is in power and as custodian, necessarily has access to our common wealth,”he was quoted as saying.

But Senator Adighije defended the action of the APC leadership, say, “If aspirant supporters can’t raise that money that means the aspirant hasn’t started. “

“I don’t think the expectation is for an individual to put his hands in his pocket and find a hundred million naira. I don’t think that is the purpose. The purpose is to measure and access an aspirant support base. If anybody can bring out N50 million to run for governor it means that the first attitude of that person, when he gets to office is to recover the money from somewhere. However, if the money was contributed by supporters, there would be no reason to recoup. It is a measure to access support base. If you see anybody trying to raise the money personally, you should know that the person has no business running for any election,”he said.

He spoke further:”The Presidency is a large constituency and anybody contesting for it should have support that can raise the money for him. If you are running for state house of Assembly, the same thing. So, with support base and spread you should be able to at least raise a reasonable amount of the money.”