The National Chairman of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Chief Dan Nwanyanwu says the party’s tickets for the 2023 general elections are free for youths, women and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs).
Nwanyanwu who made this known while addressing newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, said the aim was to allow credibility and popular people participate in elections.
He said the offer was also extended to minority ethnic groups in the various states who were often denied tickets in other parties.
The chairman said the initiative was to enable popular and credible candidates and very young people run for election in line with the Not-Too-Young-To-Run Act.
“We decided in our meeting last week to crash what is in tens of millions for nominations for political aspirants.
“We did this in the interest of the young people in Nigeria, we did this in the interest of women and PWDs.
“In our party, it now seems no more issue for you to run for election if you are popular and you have integrity,” he said.
The chairman said that though the ticket was now free, aspirants must be qualified and go through party scrutiny before flying the flag of the party.
According to him, ZLP wants to see a situation where an Idoma man will be governor in Benue, an Eggon man governor in Nasarawa and a Southern Kaduna man, governor in Kaduna state.
“If any of these groups can come together and present a credible candidate, we will encourage such person to get the ticket and run for state assembly, house of reps, senate, governor or president.
“We are now changing the trajectory, we are pushing people; we want to use this to inject more credible men into the system and carry everyone along.
“Enough of politicising on the Internet, a lot of young people are Internet tigers, come out and pick ticket and run and effect those changes all of us are clamouring for in Nigeria,” he said.
The chairman said that for aspirants outside the aforementioned categories, aspirants into state houses of assemblies are expected to pay N100,000 for intention form and N250,000 for nominations form.
He said aspirants interested in the house of reps are to pay N200,000 for intention form and N500,000 for nomination while the senate counterpart are to pay N500,000 and N1.5 million respectively.
For governorship aspirants, Nwanyanwu said that they are to pay N2 million for intention form and N10 million for nomination form.
Nwanyanwu said that presidential aspirants are to pay N5 million naira for intention form and N18 million for nomination form.