By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, yesterday said he expected twenty persons to buy the All Progressive Congress (APC) hundred million presidential forms in the South East.
Speaking with journàlists in Abuja yesterday, Nwajiuba, who is one of the presidential aspirants in the South East region, said this would have made a strong pronouncement to the rest of Nigerians that Igbos strongly believe in Nigeria contrary to insinuations.
According to the Minister, however, of the seven aspirants of the party from South East, they have all shades of people and of various age, hence Nigerians from other parts of the country can choose, and rest, assured that the rest of other aspirants from the region will support them.
“The South East does not want to arrive at a consensus. South-East wants to work with Nigerians. We are very disappointed, we thought about 10 to 20 people from the south-east will buy these forms so that we can make a case.
“When you are making a case, you can make it one way, let all of us come out; men, and women and say yes we believe in Nigeria. We have only seven aspirants and that is very small but I am sure out of this seven, we have those in their seventies, we have those in their sixties, we have those in their fifties.
“We have every type you need. Nigeria must have the full breadth of Igbo diversity. Any type you need Igbo people has it. So what we said yesterday was that anyone you choose we are going to back him or her”, he said.
Speaking on consensus, the Education Minister said it is not possible to win an election without the consent of everybody.
“So why will I say I can only win if I am the most powerful. You can only win by consensus. So, whatever consensus my party agrees to, if they give me, good for Nigeria. If they don’t give me, whoever they give, they just decide that this is what we have to offer. That is my understanding of what we are doing.”
He also disclosed his economic blueprint saying, “All economies are socially based. You have to know the sociological content of an area to be able to decide what to sell to them and what they can produce. There is no point continuing the way we’re and expecting that we will survive.
Just hearing that dollar will be shared; just knowing that there is a convention coming in the past few weeks dollar has jumped by 12%. We are now at N607 to a dollar because every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has access to any allocation, whether local government allocation or contract is changing it to the dollar to head up to the convention because we thought there will be 7800 delegates. So all the big men with big money bought up all the dollars.
“You also have the need factor because if you explain to poor people that they are the ones causing this problem they will say no. What caused who will pay, that caused inflation in the market who will pay but they don’t understand. When I was coming for Governor in Imo in 2003 I published a pamphlet.
“For every economic plan, you can just expand but it will remain the same. If you produce or at least don’t produce, the only force on your production is determined by outside forces. When I I said Nigeria is an oil occurring country instead of an oil-producing, there is a difference. Nobody knows there is oil here until outsiders came to do everything. That is a condition of Nigeria.
“So, until a nation re-engages its paradigm it will be difficult… I think we should have a different way of working.”
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