April 27, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, on Wednesday, purchased the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC’s) nomination and declaration of interest forms for the 2023 presidential election.
Nwajiuba obtained both forms after a group, Project Nigeria, reportedly pooled the N100m fees.
The group, according to Abubakar Usman, Special Assistant on new media to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, paid and picked the form on behalf of the minister at the APC Secretariat on Wednesday.
Mr Usman disclosed this in a tweet on his verified Twitter handle; @MrAbusidiq.
The Minister of State for Education, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajuiba becomes the first person to pick the APC Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms for the APC Presidential Primary as a group of Nigerians raised over N100m from where they purchased the forms for him”, Usman tweeted.
The indigene of Imo State, Nwajiuba was appointed minister of education by President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2019.
His entrance into the presidential race comes as the nation marks 72 days since the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike commenced.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14, 2022, demanding among others, the deployment of UTAS to replace the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement between the union and the Nigerian government as minimum conditions to achieve peace.
Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment; and the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, are some other Ministers who have officially declared interest in the 2023 presidency.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Wednesday, called on the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), to democratically and peacefully picket the National Secretariat of the APC for 48 hours, in protest against Nwajiuba’s presidential ambition.
According to the Association, if Nigeria were to be a truly democratic state and a nation where the rule of law is supreme, all the serving ministers, who enjoy no statutory tenures, but picked forms to succeed their boss would have been dismissed forthwith.
HURIWA said the junior education minister is not even qualified to run for the office of a Senator if Nigeria is lawful, going by the abysmal failure of the Ministry of Education to maintain academic stability in the public tertiary education system.
The rights group wondered whether the young man has any noticeable legacy in his home state of Imo and his Senatorial zone of Okigwe, that suffers from systematic and systemic marginalisation by the Federal Government that he has been part of for good 7 years and still counting.
“Okigwe is today the least developed Senatorial zone in all of Nigeria even when it is one of the oldest in terms of period of creation in the 1970s, but this Minister of Education, who has been colourless and phenomenally poor in performance is insulting our national psyche by buying the overpriced Presidential nomination form from his party even as he is telling us that his friends bought the N100 million form for him.
“Why is EFCC not asking questions now, but is constantly harassing students in Owerri, Imo State, in pursuit of the so-called yahoo-yahoo boys?
“Indeed the fault is neither of Emeka Nwajiuba, the young man whose ‘Chi’ burnished his fortune and has been favoured with the rapid political rise in the society, but that of Buhari, who has shown that he is not in touch with the contemporary times because were Mr President to be aware of his environment, he wouldn’t permit these unnecessary distractions posed to his administration by the fact that his serving Federal cabinet members are divided and are pursuing their personal political fortune and interests even whilst still holding on to publicly funded paid appointments.
“How on Earth will these distracted ministers like Emeka Nwajiuba, Chris Ngige, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, be focused towards efficient and dynamic public service delivery when they are actively involved in chasing after their delusional political ambitions to be President? This is an unmitigated political disaster and a shame of a lifetime that this infamy is tolerated by President Muhammadu Buhari”, HURIWA said in a statement signed by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, its National Coordinator.
HURIWA has, therefore, asked NANS if it has not been compromised and hijacked by political forces like the Nigeria Labour Congress, to peacefully occupy the national Secretariat of the APC to demand that the hierarchy reject the purchase of the multimillion Naira worth Presidential nomination form by the poorly performing education minister, whose ineffectiveness has kept students away from schools for two Months.
“The Academic Staff Union of Universities should similarly embark on such a civil disobedience course and they will inevitably be supported by hundreds of credible civil society stakeholders including the Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA)”, it said.
