2019: I’ll fight corruption if elected– Ezekwesili

Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) presidential candidate, Obi Ezekwesili, has revealed how she is going to tackle corruption as well as deal with corrupt public officials if elected.

She made the revelation on Wednesday when she appeared on CNN programmed anchored by Christine Amanpour.

Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, said to tackle corruption, she was going to prevent the opportunity for corruption and that she was going to deregulate the economy in a way that public officials will not have too much presence in the economy to be able to utilise it for personal gain.

“I was one of the co-founders of Transparency International, and we know that corruption is a task on the poor and we already know that there are ways to tackle corruption. You prevent the opportunity for corruption, you reduce corruption and part of my agenda is to deregulate the economy in such a way that public officials don’t have too much presence in the economy to be able to utilise it for personal gain,” she said.

Asked on how she was going to deal with those occupying public offices who engage in acts of corruption and as a result wants the status quo to remain, she said, “The society know me for having taken them on before, I was the one that worked on fixing of our public procurement system. It was chaotic until I entered government.”

Commenting on issues of Boko Haram kidnap of school girls, the Bring Back Our Girls movement coordinator regretted that Nigeria government has continued to fail children of the poor that decided to attend school.

Recalling how she had initiated a reform that allowed more girls to go to school, especially in the north, when she served as Education Minister, Ezekwesili said, “When these girls went to school and were abducted, what I expected my government to do was an immediate swift response, but that did not happen, so I decided that I will be a voice to those girls until they are all rescued.

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“As far as I’m concerned, we have no credential to ask girls to go to school around the world until the rest of the world brings back the rest of the Chibok girls as well as Leah Sharibu, and Alice, a humanitarian aid worker who was abducted while meeting the needs of those that were displaced in our country.”

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