Oby Ezekwesili: The fighter for social justice, women rights

Former education minister Oby Ezekwesili couldn’t have seen it coming when she told the Senator representing Ebonyi North, Onyekachi Peter Nwebonyi to ‘shut up,’ an angry way of saying ‘can you stop talking?’

The venue was the Ethics Committee hearing room of the Senate. Ezekwesili was there to lend support to Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the suspended senator representing Kogi Central, knowing that the judicial set up was no way likely to deliver justice. The committee was handpicked by Natasha’s opponent, Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

In the run up to the committee sitting, Nwebonyi, a staunch ally of Akpabio, had made several unpleasant comments against Natasha in defence of Akpabio. Among other things, he called Natasha a woman that has given birth to six children for six different men, which is false.

So, during the Senate Ethics Committee hearing to probe Natasha’s allegation of sexual harassment against Akpabio, Ezekwesili could not stand the overzealous Nwebonyi who kept talking in defence of Akpabio. In anger, Ezekwesili told him to ‘shut up.’ That was all the provocation that made the senator to use words considered too low to be uttered by enlightened people. He called her among other things; “smelly mouth,” “big fool” and “fool at 70.” He worsened his case when he went on TV bragging that by social stratification, he was higher than Ezekwesili in ranking.

PoliticsNow brings you a profile of Ezekwesili, a woman who has persistently being holding the government accountable using the office of the citizen.

Ms Ezekwesili, a former Vice President of the World Bank for Africa, a former Nigerian Education Minister and co-founder of Transparency International, holds a Master’s degree in International Law and Diplomacy from the University of Lagos, and a Master’s in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Agriculture in Abeokuta in 2012.

The former Education Minister is also a co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement, an advocacy group formed to protest the government’s inability to secure the return of the Chibok girls, who were kidnapped in 2014.

A chartered accountant by profession, ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili first served the Nigerian government as Head of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit, where she led reforms to public procurement. She was appointed Minister of Solid Minerals in 2005 and chaired the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. In 2006 she became Minister of Education, until taking up her World Bank post in 2007.

Prior to working for the Government of Nigeria, Dr Ezekwesili was at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Having co-founded the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, she directed its work in Africa. She is also a Senior Economic Advisor to Open Society, which aims to build vibrant and tolerant societies with democratically accountable governments.

On 1 October 2012, one of the world’s leading telecommunications firm, Bharti Airtel, with operations in 20 countries, named Ezekwesili as a director on its board. She is also on the boards of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the School of Public Policy of Central European University, The Harold Hartog School of Government and Policy, New African magazine, The Center for Global Leadership @ Tufts University.

Not withstanding her career and academic accomplishments with friends among the most powerful, Ezekwesili is never tired of lending her voice to social activism, especially against bad governance. She is a veteran fighter for social justice and women rights.