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Ezekwesili to Buhari: My attending WEF not responsible for your failure
Former Minister of Education and ex-World Bank Vice President, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili has hit back at the Federal Government for querying her decision to attend World Economic Forum for Africa which held in Cape Town, South Africa last week.
Ezekwesili had come under criticisms from Nigerians and officials of the government for attending the Forum despite the decision of Nigeria to boycott it on account of the recent xenophobic attacks in the host nation.
But the former minister who did not take kindly to the criticisms, took to her twitter handle, @obyezeks on Saturday, to hit back at the government, pointing out that the Buhari administration already had several of its officials at the Forum before she arrived.
She accused the government of only seizing the opportunity to attack her because of her consistency in pointing out its failings, while reminding President Muhammadu Buhari that her decision to attend the Forum is not responsible for his failures.
“You’d be naive to think that the mob action the Nigerian government planned, incited and orchestrated against me was “because she went to World Economic Forum when the country boycotted it”.
“No. Just part of a cheap and frustrated strategy designed to bully, slander, denigrate me at every opportunity,” she said.
“A Nigerian government that had several of its high ranking and low ranking officials in South Africa when I arrived for World Economic Forum on Wednesday mischievously rolls out the drumbeats of attacks against me, a private citizen for “ignoring the boycott of WEF”.
“Their dishonesty is incurable. The most laughable of the cheap muck they ignorantly were throwing at me was “she could not ignore the Dollar World Economic Forum would pay her”. Imagine.
“What an irredeemable and corrupted bunch of illiterates who think everything is about money. I earn no Fees for speaking at World Economic Forum Sorry souls.
“I understand how frustrating it must be for a grossly incompetent government to have to cope with my determination to call out their serial pattern of Bad Leadership and Governance. I did on the SA saga and so to deflect accountability they decided to make me the topic.”
Ezekwesili wondered why her decision to attend the Forum as a private citizen should be the concern of the government, even as she noted that President Buhari could not have boycotted an event he never attended and was not invited to attend.
“For two days, a private citizen’s decision to attend World Economic Forum became the issue that mattered to the Nigerian Government. It took delight in having citizens forget to scrutinize how EFFECTIVELY it was handling its responsibility. Oby Ezekwesili at the World Economic Forum was reason President Muhammadu Buhari was failing citizens,” he said.
“World Economic Forum is not a statutory meeting of countries and their governments. Not at all. WEF is not a program of the Government of South Africa.
“WEF is an economic conference of a Switzerland based Economic Think Tank that hosts its Africa WEF in Cape Town Fake News reported that 2 presidents (whom I know) and who did not even confirm attendance to WEF this year ‘have boycotted’.
“Muhammadu Buhari, meanwhile, has never before been to WEF Africa since he came into office. Never. So what does “Buhari boycotts WEF” really mean in substance?””
