A Toast for Oby Ezekwesili @ 60

By Sunny Awhefeada

The turn of the present millennium bequeathed many tendencies to Nigeria. As the curtain came down for the last century, the genie of military rule took flight and in its stead was the ephemerally refreshing air of civilian governance. The build up to the year 2000 was marked with frenzy and that date was configured as the climax of humanity’s sojourn on the path of modernity which began in the first decade of the previous century. The year 2000 and the years that were to follow were thought of as years of unimagined and infinite possibilities. One of the salutary tendencies manifested in the new millennium was the emergence of women in Nigeria’s national development. The women ruptured the hitherto unreachable glass ceiling and showed their hands as significant factors in nation building. Growing up, Social Studies taught us that Mrs. Ebun Oyegbola was Nigeria’s first female federal minister. And that fact was so for many years because those who ruled Nigeria then were coup plotters and women never numbered among coup plotters. Thus for the cumulative twenty-nine years that Nigeria was ruled by pepper soup consuming coup plotters, no female featured as a minister or as a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) and later the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) as the ruling military oligarchies were called at different epochs.

However, Olusegun Obasanjo’s second coming as president changed the narrative by slightly unhinging patriarchy in national governance by bringing on board well educated and competent women who could have actually run Nigeria better if given the opportunity. It was this background that threw up the amazon, Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, better known as Oby Ezekwesili. With a solid education at the University of Nigeria and the University of Lagos, Ezekwesili also studied at Harvard and worked with Jeffrey Sachs as the Director of the Harvard-Nigeria Economic Strategy Project. She was also a founding Director of Transparency International where her path first crossed with Obasanjo’s. Ezekwesili’s solid education, transformational passion and infectious patriotism rolled up into the magical essence of what zeal, knowledge and dedication cam conjure. Her mind remains a fertile ground for economic policy and ideas that drive good governance. It was in recognition of her worth as a development thinker that earned her a slot in Obasanjo’s administration from 1999 to 2007 during which she proved herself as a thought leader in whom the lucidity and elegance of development theory was well blended with its practical application to problems.

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When she burst forth into the opaque terrain of Nigeria’s “fantastically corrupt” public service, it was as the Head of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit in the Presidency. The Obasanjo era of 1999 to 2007 was infamous for its inveterate corruption, but Ezekwesili took on the thieves of state and did her best to minimize financial haemorrhage. It was at this point that she earned herself the moniker of “Madam Due Process”. She also brought her brilliance, understanding and articulation of Nigeria’s development aspirations to bear on the then Economic Team which put Nigeria on the path of recrudescence. Ezekwesili and other like minds worked to refocus Nigeria economically and by extension politically. Despite the many contradictions that beset the Obasanjo administration, the Economic Team acquitted itself in designing a new roadmap for Nigeria’s recovery. Unfortunately, the politicians like the locusts went to work and subverted the nation. Ezekwesili moved up the scale to become a Minister first of Solid Minerals and later of Education. As Minister of Solid Minerals, she pursued reforms which translated into economic fortunes for Nigeria. Whatever benefits that accrued from that sector till date were the outcome of the reforms she initiated. Her reformist zeal also saw her charting a new vision for Education for the brief period she superintended over the sector. The Education for All project, the Millennium Development Goals, the reviving of the Federal Inspectorate Unit, the focus on quality assurance among other reforms pointed in the direction of upscaling education in Nigeria.

Ezekwesili’s achievements also inhere in her being a global technocrat peaking with her vice presidency of the World Bank. She oversaw the activities of the World Bank in forty-eight African countries. Beyond that portfolio was the advisory role she played to nine Africa presidents desirous of bettering the economic fortune of their countries. She also has many other global engagements which make her one of the world’s most respected thought leaders.
Despite her lofty accomplishments and the comfort therein, Ezekwesili negated the pleasure of sipping coffee and remaining in the comfort zone of self-indulgence. She decided to pitch her tent with the Nigerian hoi polloi and put her cerebral endowment at their service. When Boko Haram unleashed affliction on Nigeria by abducting the Chibok Girls in 2014, Ezekwesili joined the #BringBackOurGirls brigade and was at the barricades asking for their return. When the All Progressives Congress (APC) evolved into a political formation around 2014, its apparatchiks invited Ezekwesili to deliver an address at its convention thinking they will legitimize the party with her support. But Ezekwesili showed that she loved Nigeria more than the APC and spoke the bitter truth to the party men and women on why they must save Nigeria and not gang up. In the course of her advocacy for a new Nigeria, she founded the Fix Politics Initiative as well as the Red Card Movement, both of which were intended to galvanize Nigeria in a new and desirable direction.

Towards the 2019 general elections, Ezekwesili combined activism with politics by declaring her intention to run for the Nigerian presidency. Sadly, Nigeria failed her and she withdrew from the race. The sordid experience neither blunted her patriotism nor blurred her vision for Nigeria. She returned to Civil Society and continued to think and talk about Nigeria in sublime cadence. Her voice has remained a significant voice of reason and vision. She has become a symbol of values, courage, conviction and the much desired regenerative ideals that will rework Nigeria and bring our country back. She has been consistent in offering her golden opinions on national discourse and she has been quite impactful as an agenda setting mind.

Ezekwesili is a testimony to the beauty of girl-child education in the era into which she was born. Her parents, Mr. Benjamin and Mrs. Cecilia Ujubuonu, deserve our gratitude for sending her to school all the way to the university. Her husband, Pastor Chinedu Ezekwesili is also deserving of accolades for being supportive of her aspirations in a setting and at a time when it wasn’t fashionable for the male folk to do so. The world is fast changing and the Nigerian social structure is adapting too. Oby Ezekwesili is a phenomenal woman who deserve the praise of all men and women of goodwill. Her survival and flourish in a society that would easily dismiss her as “know-know” or “I too know” is a reflection of her strong personality. Coupled with male antagonism to women’s aspirations is even the more destructive envy and hatred by fellow women in work places and beyond. There are women who denounce sorority and wouldn’t want one of their own to flourish. Ezekwesili must have experienced all of this, but she was imperturbable. This tribute then is not just for Ezekwesili, but for all women who are struggling to make impact in our public life for the advancement of our society and world.