Chibok Girls Activist

The co-founder of a group to raise awareness about schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadists said she aims to become Nigeria’s first woman president by mobilizing first-time voters discouraged from going to the polls by the long domination of two main parties.

Obiageli Ezekwesili co-founded the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Nigeria’s former Minister of Education and former World Bank Vice President for Africa, Obiageli was one of the first to demand action when 300 girls were abducted by the extremist group Boko Haram in 2014. She was shocked by the silence of government officials, so she took to the streets and mobilized a global movement online.

“We need a collaborative disruption of the present acceptance of extremism, especially targeting women. Wherever women are being attacked by extremist ideas – whether it’s our Chibok girls or women in Syria – it’s the same underlying philosophy and the world cannot afford to stay in this state of complacency.” – Obiageli Ezekwesili

Threats and intimidation poured in. Obiageli was unfazed. She has never stopped calling for justice and the safe release of every abducted girl. She’s rallying fellow advocates to take a stand on behalf of women and girls, and says her government’s slow response to the crisis must spark a conversation about the kind of nation Nigeria wants to be.

Obiageli Ezekwesili, 55, also a former Cabinet minister and senior World Bank official, announced she would run as the candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) in the February 2019 vote to decide who runs Agrefrica’s most populous country and top energy producer.

Former Nigerian minister and Chibok girls activist Obiageli Ezekwesili speaks during an interview with Reuters in Abuja, Nigeria, Oct. 8, 2018.

She and other candidates will line up against President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler who is seeking a second term, and former vice president Atiku Abubakar who is running for the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

“I am now fed up, like most Nigerians are, with the status quo and so we want to disrupt our political landscape.” Obiageli Ezekwesili

Ezekwesili said the two main parties — the APC and the PDP, which have held power since the advent of civilian rule in 1999 — were all but indistinguishable. She called them “Siamese twins” that had done little to tackle endemic graft and poor governance.

Political defections are common in Nigeria, where identity and patronage largely take precedence over ideology and specific policies.

She said her campaign would seek to attract people who had not previously participated in elections — a group she said amounted to a majority of eligible voters.

Independent Electoral Commission figures show that just 43 percent of people who registered to vote at the last election in 2015 actually went to the polls. Ezekwesili estimated that some 72 percent of eligible voters, including people who did not register, failed to turn out at the ballot box.

“They simply decided that the candidatures of the two parties they were being asked to vote for were not appealing to them, so they just elected to stay home.”
“That base of 72 percent of people who should turn things around in the country, they are our target. We are going to activate that base.”

Policy proposals Ezekwesili hopes will lure more first-time voters to her candidacy include:

reforms of the state-owned oil company NNPC, which has been beset by decades of mismanagement and is crucial to the OPEC member’s economic fortunes. Oil sales account for two-thirds of Nigerian state revenue.
to enable the private sector to create more jobs and focus on developing skills in Nigeria’s workforce.

One of the founders of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Ezekwesili also co-founded the Bring Back Our Girls campaign to promote efforts to free about 270 schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

4GGL thanks Voice of America + Vital Voices for this story!

Voice of America is a U.S. government-funded international radio broadcast source that serves as the United States federal government’s official institution for non-military, external broadcasting.

Vital Voices invests in women to improve the world.

“We search the world for a woman leader with a daring vision. Then we partner with her to make that vision a reality. Through long-term investments that expand her skills, connections and visibility, we accelerate her efforts, improving the world for us all.”

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