A former minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has disclosed that former president Goodluck Jonathan begged her many times to serve as a minister in his administration.
Mrs. Ezekwesili stated this while reacting to claims in some quarters that she became active in criticising the President Muhammadu Buhari administration because a ministerial position did not come her way.
She told The Sun that she only took up the role of criticising the Buhari’s administration when it started toeing the path of Jonathan’s.
According to her, “It wasn’t personal. So, not understanding that, but instead, the government became adversarial just like the Jonathan administration to the movement and then, they began to say all these exactly the same thing that the President Jonathan administration and the allies were saying, oh, you know, she is angry at the president because she is not a minister.
“But President Jonathan failed to tell them how many times I was asked to be a minister in his cabinet and I refused. So, the people who speak like that speak out of ignorance and they speak out of a complete absence of fundamental values that drive me.
“I am a woman driven by character and my courage of conviction. Look, having spent six and a half years in government, I have no need to prove any point.
“There is no point to prove! The work that I do, supporting countries on the continent at leadership level to run better economies, that gives me the greatest joy.
“At 44 for goodness sake, I had been the minister and then gone to the World Bank and been vice president. Can you imagine a situation where people even do not get analytical in their thought?
“What I was ten years ago, is something that I need to be and that is why I am doing the things I do. Does it make sense? I mean, think of it.”
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