I was a PDP minister who served the people, says Oby Ezekwesili

Oby Ezekwesili, former vice-president of the World Bank, says it is a fact that she was a minister under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but she served in the interest of the people and for good governance.

The former minister, who holds the PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) responsible for Nigeria’s litany of woes, added that all she did is there for all to see.

“It is a matter of fact that I was a minister under the PDP administration, but what you cannot contest is that I was a minister that was driven by the noble objectives of serving the people,” Ezekwesili told Channels TV.

“If you looked at the things I was responsible for, whether it is the due process, that is the Bureau for Public Procurement, it was for good governance. If you look at NEITI, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, it was for good governance.

“If you looked at what we did in the ministry of minerals, especially the new legislation that took away the discretionary powers of the minister to just be giving licences, it was for good governance.”

The 55-year-old, who is the most prominent woman to run for the office of the president in Nigeria’s history, said the response she has been getting in funding her campaign has been majorly in terms of goodwill.

“The response is tentative, but one thing we have seen is massive goodwill. There are different social networks that exist already and those networks are all over the country,” Ezekwesili said.

“Those kinds of networks say to you, you can leverage our existence as a basis to do the things you would normally have to find people and pay them money for.

“Partnership is a very important resource for us. when you look at the power of goodwill; for example, there are so many people that when they declared for office, they didn’t get the massive goodwill that we have received both domestically and internationally”

Ezekwesili, who recently made the final shortlist for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against corruption, stated that “politics is not an investment” for her, adding that all she wants to see is “good governance”.