Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) has responded to criticisms that followed the fixing of N10 million for chairmanship candidate registration form and N5 million for those contesting councillorship positions in the forthcoming local government elections.

This was stated by the KANSIEC chairman, Prof Sani Malumfashi, yesterday while responding to questions from newsmen in Kano.

The chairman declared that the decision was final and that there would be no reduction and no increase.“As far as this commission is concerned, that amount is final. No reduction, no increament.“It may surprise you to note that bitterly complained are the officials of the ruling NNPP in the state themselves. The ruling party complained bitterly.

“We said it very clearly that, taking into consideration the inflationary trend in the country, this issue of Naira floating, this issue of withdrawal of subsidy, they were so infectious and contagious to the extent that they infected every segment of Nigeria’s social and economic environment.

“Nothing in the market is cheap now. How do you isolate other aspects, on particular sales of form, from the general market environment? They are inseparable, you cannot separate them, you cannot isolate them,” he stated.

He further blamed the inflation in the country for fixing such an exorbitant rate while making an analysis of the expenditure to be expected.“Secondly, Kano State is one state equal to three other states. There are 44 local governments, 484 wards, 11,222 polling units and over six million voters, and we are recruiting over 30,000 adhoc staff.“And we are claiming to be independent. If we are absolutely dependent on government, tell me how independent we are going to be? On government finances? We cannot assert that independent nature.

“I want us to be realistic, if Katsina state with 34 local governments, fixes N5m for chairmanship form, if Jigawa with 27 local governments fixes N5 million, how much do you expect Kano state with 44 local government areas to fix?

“If Kaduna fixes N10 million with only 23 local governments how much do you expect Kano with 44 local governments to fix? This is talking about a population of over six million voters. That six million translates into printing of voters register.

“We took cognisance of all these before arriving at these figures.

“More so, given the Nigerian political culture, even if we don’t ask candidates to pay N10 million, they are going to spend more than N10 million in buying indomie, spaghetti, tablets of soap, textile materials, to the electorate.

“If they are reluctant to spend the money legitimately, they are going to spend the money on electioneering campaign illegitimately.

“People are not taking all these into consideration, they spend money on security, election officials illegitimately, they spend money on the electorate buying votes.

“Even if we ask them to pay N200, I assure you they are going to spend N10 million on electioneering campaign,” he added.

Politicians in the state have criticised the amounts as being too exorbitant, saying it is a deliberate attempt at disallowing other political parties from participating in the local government elections.