Ezekwesili Expresses Readiness to Fight for Rights of Nigerians

The Presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria
(ACPN), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has expressed readiness to fight for
the rights of Nigerians and eradicate poverty in the country.

She said this at a dinner in Lagos where Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former
president of Liberia, endorsed her presidential ambition.

During the dinner, which was organised by Women in Successful Careers
(WISCAR), Ezekwesili narrated her age-long friendship with Sirleaf, part
of which was her role as a senior adviser on economic reforms to the
ex-Liberian president.

The ACPN presidential candidate explained that the exemplary leadership
of Sirleaf showed that when “a woman stands up to say ‘I want to lead’,
she is ready to serve.”

Ezekwesili said that Nigerians needed “a leader that is willing to give
their all in character , competence and capacity to serve the people and
take the country out of stagnation, mediocrity and cycles of failure in
the hands of old order politicians.”

According to her, women and youths must find their voice in our country,
and demonstrate that they are fed up of poor quality leaders who have
held the country down regardless of which political party holds sway.

“It is time to vote them out so we can build a prosperous, stable and
harmonious nation where everyone has equal opportunity to do well,” she
added.

While urging Nigerians not to give up on the country, she said, “It is
either we all resigned to hopelessness, surrendered and said thank you
Nigeria, you defeated us, or we did one more thing; and that is, to
mobilize ourselves as citizens and elect as President in 2019, a person
whose track record of service to Nigeria and Nigerians is well known.
That person is Oby Ezekwesili.”

“I detest the bad leadership by old order political class while the
country totters. I am therefore ready to mobilise my fellow citizens to
fight for Nigerians. Nigeria needs all of us to fight for her rescue from the
grips of those who are planning to be re-elected or elected again so
that they can fail even more and watch more citizens join the already 87
million extremely poor Nigerians.

“The 2019 election is our opportunity to say ‘No’ with finality. It is
truly now over for those who cannot offer any innovative ideas for the
development of our country.

“In recent time, we haven’t seen people break out of poverty as it used
to happen. A lot of our politicians and elite like me all had the
opportunity to break out of poverty through access to education. Sadly
these days, our people are trapped in poverty and parents cannot give
qualitative education to take their children out of poverty. It is an
entrapment that we must urgently destroy. ”

She warned that Nigeria cannot make progress with the increasing rate of
poverty and declared that she was ready to rescue Nigeria from
mismanagement.