The presidential candidate of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili has said that nothing differentiates the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ekwezesili who made the remark in a 7, 834-word treatise entitled ‘To those who say we cannot win’ at a world press conference held in Lagos on Monday, October 29 described the two parties as Siamese twins of confusion.
“For those of you considering the PDP as an alternative, I really want to ask you: what is the thing that you see about them that is any different from the APC. Really? These people are the same: Siamese Twins of Failure.
“Attempting to choose between these two is like asking one to choose between death by poison or death by gunshot. God forbid. We cannot reject one oppressor and hand over to another oppressor. We do not love bondage. We do not enjoy suffering. God in heaven forbid,” she said.
“…The PDP is not in opposition to the APC. The candidate of the PDP has over the past 14 years gone from PDP to AC, AC to PDP, PDP to APC and now back to PDP. These people are brothers and sisters of iniquity and impoverishment, merchants of failure and disappointment. Don’t believe that 419!
“They are both part of a political ruling class that has held us bound, manipulated and diminished us for decades. Now they are auditioning to extend their streak of failure for another four years? God really forbid! The real opponent that the Nigerian people have in 2019 is this old political order that takes and takes and takes, and never replenishes anything,” she said.
On the PDP, she said: “For goodness sake, what has fundamentally changed about that PDP we have always known? What lessons did the party really learn after its defeat in 2015? Is this not the same PDP that looted the monies meant to equip our military, so that our soldiers had to run away at the sight of Boko Haram, because they had no weapons? The same PDP that spent precious days denying that our Chibok girls were kidnapped and so allowed the terrorists get away? Is this not the same PDP that conducted a recruitment exercise for the Immigration Service that killed scores of our young people and yet nobody was sacked or punished? Haba. How can we forget so easily!
So the question is: Apart from forgetfulness, why are some Nigerians suddenly considering the PDP yet again? I have heard some people say it is because the PDP candidate has run successful businesses and therefore will be good for the economy at a time like this.”
On the APC, the APCN standard bearer said Nigerians yearned for a change in 2015 but regretted that the citizens had got less than what they expected.
She said: “Citizens were so angry with the brand of failure posing as governance that we took a gamble and placed their hopes in today’s ruling party, the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari, a 71-year old former dictator who has now shown neither the capacity nor the aptitude for the highest office in the land.
“If that campaign was a movie, the title of the movie would be: ‘The lesser of two evils.’
Everything the APC candidate did was justified and excused because he was branded as “the lesser evil.” He was given an easy ride. No serious questions were asked about his competence or track record or world view; he couldn’t even be bothered to attend a presidential debate to defend his ideas in a competitive environment. Yet he was promising CHANGE. And a majority of Nigerian voters bought what he was selling. But where is this change?”
On her suitability and qualification as Nigeria’s next president, Ezekwesili said her candidacy on the platform of ACPN represents the most prepared, most qualified and most formidable choice for 2019 stressing that “you cannot afford to sit on the sidelines in this battle for the soul of Nigeria.”
She said she was head hunted from Harvard in 1999 and “asked to come and help as a technocrat to rebuild a country that had just been recovered from the wasted years of the military” adding that she had over the years proved her mettle in her public life.
“I was priviledged to be a cabinet member before I was 40 and a minister by the time I was 42, implementing the reforms that changed Nigeria’s broken and corrupt public contracting system to one of a global standard. Power doesn’t faze me. Power has never and can never confuse me.
“I am often uncomfortable speaking about my record, but I am now a politician. I chose to get into politics myself, and so it is my duty to remind you of my track record.
“I led the World Bank’s operations in 47 African countries for five years delivering up to $40 billion that helped countries tackle development challenges across a range of issues. I am not talking about theories, or claiming to lead an economic management team when all of us who did the work knew you were very busy supervising leakages and patronage. I am talking about the actual work of rebuilding nations,” she said.
