WAS OBASANJO CORRUPT? OBY EZEKWESILI ATTACKS NUHU RIBADU

Obiageli Ezekwesili, Nigeria’s former Minister of Education, and former World Bank vice president for Africa has questioned the credibility of former anti-corruption czar and EFFC Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu in an interview with Aljazeera.
Questioned by Head to Head on Aljazeera host, Mehdi Hasan about endemic corruption in Nigeria and Ribadu’s assertion (allegedly revealed via Wikileaks) that Obasanjo was more corrupt than Abacha, Oby refused to condemn her former boss and mentor President Olusegun Obasanjo, who ruled between 1999 and 2007. Rather, she questioned Ribadu’s credibility over the comment credited to him in a Wikileaks revelation, asking; “Why did you (Ribadu) wait until after the fact?”

EZEKWESILI GIVES FG 24-HOURS DEADLINE FOR TANGIBLE RESULTS ON RESCUE OF CHIBOK GIRLS

Tired of endlessly waiting for the release of the 218 Chibok school girls who were kidnapped over six months ago, the co-Convener, Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group and former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, on Tuesday called out the Federal Government.
In continuation of the daily tweets she reels out on twitter through her handle @obyezeks, she said the federal government should not allow another 24 hours to pass without tangible results in terms of rescuing the girls.

AIRPORT HARASSMENT, MY STORY –EZEKWESILI

A former Minister of Education and a champion of the #BringBackOurGirlsCampaign, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has narrated her ordeals in the hands of security operatives at the Abuja International Airport on Monday.
Ezekwesili was delayed for over 40 minutes by men of the Department of State Security, who harassed her based on “orders from above.”
Narrating her ordeals to members of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, to whom she is a trustee on Tuesday, Ezekwesili gave a blow by blow account of her ordeals in the hands of DSS.
This was contained in a statement by the CANAN Executive Director, Pastor Laolu Akande, after the former minister visited the group in London.
Akande quoted Ezekwesili as saying that, “I arrived at the airport yesterday (on Monday) to travel to London on British Airline. First, after the luggage screening section, I moved to the Customs people, sitting right next to it and do a more thorough bag search. Rather than they handling my luggage as is the practice, there were three SSS men, who rudely took over before they could do so, and ordered me to open my bag.

CHIBOK GIRLS: FG NOT DOING ENOUGH, SAYS EZEKWESILI

Former World Bank Vice President for Africa, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has said she is not convinced that the Federal Govern¬ment is doing enough to bring back schoolgirls abducted by terrorists from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.
Ezekwesili, who spoke on the programme ‘Face The Nation’, broadcast on Rock¬City 101.9 FM in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the initial 24 hours after the adoption was very critical and since government drag-footed and wasted time, doubting if the abduction was real or not, the kidnappers settled down to re-strategise.

CHIBOK: EZEKWESILI FLAYS CRITICS, CALLS THEM HEATHENS

• Okupe attacks her for snubbing him at airport
One of the organisers of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday went for the jugular of those seemingly opposing the group’s efforts.
This is coming on the heels of the recent twitter clash between her and the presidential Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, when the latter chided Ezekwesili over her inability to accept the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s sublime supremacy over her.
Tweeting from her twitter handle @obyezeks, the former Minister of Education replied those who strongly suggested that she was an opportunist who simply loved being in the limelight.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH OF ELUSIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – READ OBY EZEKWESILI’S ADDRESS AT THE APC SUMMIT

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH OF ELUSIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT- NIGERIA’S CENTURY OLD FAILURES AND PROSPECTS FOR A NEW NIGERIA

Protocols:
Good afternoon, chieftains and members of the Action People’s Congress.
Thanks for inviting me as your Keynote Speaker at your Unveiling of Road Map Summit. I do not know how you decided to take this high risk of inviting me to your gathering, knowing full well that my zeal for candor can be generally unsettling for some people of your class and occupation.  Since you took the risk, I have assumed the liberty to speak boldly even to your discomfort especially considering that we live in a season of grim when our country is greatly troubled. In perilous times like this, Truth is the absolute freedom. I shall be spurred on by the counsel of George Orwell who in honor of truth stated that “in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. I further assume that if you wanted someone with the skills of deceit, it would not be me that you would have invited to your gathering. I therefore speak to you today not as a politician

Context and Fact are very important for me as both a scholar and practitioner of public policy. Context is the missing link that helps us to connect the dots between the visible and the hidden, and between the general and the specific. Fact or Truth is the evidence that never takes flight nor ceases to exist even where ignored for hundred years. So my speech in content and delivery will be hinged on context and facts.For context, nothing serves a better guide than History. The philosopher and novelist George Santayana famously said that “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Winston Churchill reinforced Santayana by counselling, “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” I am compelled even further to tread the path of history by our Centenary celebration and shall therefore use – Nigeria’s political history as the context for this speech.

COST OF GOVERNANCE: EZEKWESILI CHALLENGES LAWMAKERS TO DEBATE

Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has insisted that the National Assembly gulped approximately N1tn in the last eight years.

She has, therfore, challenged the lawmakers to a public hearing to defend her claims.

In a statement on Wednesday, she defended her submissions at the Civil Society Roundtable hosted by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, on Monday, where she gave details on the budgetary allocations to the National Assembly in the last eight years.

Ezekwesili’s presentation was immediately contested by members of the National Assembly, who rebuked her for what they described as blackmail against the legislature.

$67B FOREIGN RESERVE: PRESIDENCY MOVES AGAINST EZEKWESILI

The Presidency may have moved against former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, over her allegations that the Federal Government under the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan squandered the over $67 billion left by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, with the arrest of a consultant to the Ministry, Tom Chiahemen, publisher of National Accord.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had arrested Chiahemen on Wednesday over his role in the advertisements placed by the Ministry of Education while Ezekwesili held sway as Minister.

According to Chiahemen, the ICPC officials were of the view that Cattigan Communications, a company which he had interest in, could be one of the companies used as a conduit pipe for siphoning government funds and “they told me pointedly that it was possible the whole advert jamboree during the tenure of Dr. Ezekwesili as Education Minister could be a hoax”.

FOREIGN RESERVES: EZEKWESILI LIED SHAMELESSLY – PRESIDENCY

…Says govt ‘ll not engage her in any public debate
THE Presidency has again taken a swipe at former Vice President, World Bank, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, accusing her of inciting Nigerians against the Federal Government, just as it stressed that her allegations were almost stupid and senseless.

Addressing newsmen yesterday, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, noted that the former Minister of Education lied shamelessly by raising false alarm on what she would have buttressed with figures, especially against the backdrop of where she was coming from as an officer of the World Bank.

Okupe who said that it was not true that the money was squandered as alleged, stressed that the Federal Government was not run by proceeds from the external reserves, but what the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, remits to the government and that which is shared among the three tiers of government.

FG ASKS EZEKWESILI TO ACCOUNT FOR N458BN

 The federal government yesterday accused former minister of education and former World Bank group for Africa vice president, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, of misappropriating a total of N458billion allocated to the country’s educational sector when she served as minister between 2006 and 2007.

It also described as factually incorrect Ezekwesili’s claim  that late President Umar Musa Yar’adua and President Goodluck Jonathan squandered $67 billion in reserves, comprising $45 billion in the external reserves and $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account left by former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the end of May 2007.