Former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has restated her support for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, ahead of the coming 2027 election.
This is as she also called for a new trajectory that addresses national governance, human dignity and the failure of Nigeria’s political system to improve the lives of the citizenry.
Ezekwesili, a former vice president for the World Bank’s Africa region, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, made the remarks on Arise TV’s ‘Prime Time’ show on Monday.
She recalled that, using the same leadership criteria to pick her preferred presidential candidate in the keenly contested 2023 election, she would still support the ex-Anambra State governor, adding that he (Obi) would rank higher.
“In 2023, I made it very clear that, using the criteria on which I see leadership either fail or succeed to govern well… the other two candidates score considerably lower than what you would assign to former Governor Obi, and so I was going to stand with Governor Obi.
“I don’t think that anything has really significantly changed,” she said.
Ezekwesili, however, warned against making Obi or any other presidential candidate the sole focus of the debate over Nigeria’s future.
“Don’t make this about Peter Obi. I don’t want us to personalise. I’m interested in the construct,” she stated.
Ezekwesili lamented the poor level of dignity attached to human life, adding that it’s high time the people voted their choices into office.
She also challenged the country’s present state, saying the “design” needs to be rewritten.
“What we have to show for it is the complete collapse of the dignity of the human being and the dignity of life. It’s like we have zeroed out on the value of life, and yet we continue to think that somehow, if we just keep doing elections, we’ll be fine.
“I am challenging that and saying that Nigerians should at least vote for themselves. If no one votes for you in terms of the leaders you’re choosing, vote for yourselves.
“The greatest tragedy of the country is this resignation—that this is our destiny. I say no, this is by design. It is not our destiny; this is by design. This design needs to be challenged. The design that we run right now has not worked for us; we do need to design again,” she said.
The former two-time education minister urged capable Nigerians to contest political offices at the local, state and federal levels.
