Since Nigeria gained independence from colonial rule in 1960, it has not been led by a woman. With the 2019 presidential election less than five weeks away, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, is one of the five female candidates working hard to upset that history.
However, she’s not selling her candidacy simply as a potential history-making first female Nigerian president but rather wants voters to elect her as the most suitable choice based on her character, competence and capacity to lead the country better than it has been led by previous administrations and the current one headed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
When at least 100 people were killed in Plateau State in June 2018, Ezekwesili, 55, called President Buhari, 76, “a leader without emotional intelligence” due to his apathetic reaction to the wanton violence that menacingly swept through the country in 2018.
One of Ezekwesili’s regular beats is the promise to run a government that particularly cares about the people and their interests.
“I don’t want to know anything about politics. I know how to care about other people. That is enough politics for me. Just having that mindset that you’re not in this for yourself. That it has nothing to do with you. That is exactly what I’m going to be doing,” she told Pulse during an October 2018 interview.
Her years of advocacy lends a great air of credibility to this promise as many people across the world recognise her as a co-founder of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group.
For over four years now, the group has relentlessly campaigned for the government to secure the release of 276 schoolgirls that were kidnapped by terrorist group, Boko Haram, in 2014.
Even though more than half of the girls have returned through escapes and negotiations, the advocacy group has not given up on the return of 112 girls, and other abducted victims, left in captivity with Ezekwesili leading several protests in Abuja including to the Aso Rock Villa itself. She was even briefly arrested during a protest in January 2018.
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