The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has obtained the Nomination and Expression of Interest forms for the All Progressives Congress Presidential ticket at a cost of N100 million.
According to article 84(12) of the recently adopted Electoral Act 2022, Buhari’s ministers running for elective offices must retire from their existing positions before the APC primary elections, which will take place on May 30 and June 1, 2022.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) has harshly criticised Nwajiuba for making what it said was an ill-advised move to purchase the N100 million worth of forms.
HURIWA expressed its displeasure in a statement issued by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko.
According to the organisation, if Nigeria were genuinely democratic and the rule of law reigned supreme, all serving ministers with no statutory tenures who obtained forms to succeed their boss would have been fired immediately.
According to HURIWA, the junior education minister was not even qualified to run for Senator if Nigeria was functional, based on the Ministry of Education’s abject inability to preserve academic stability in the public tertiary education system.
“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.
“How on Earth will these distracted ministers like Emeka Nwajiuba, Chris Ngige, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi be focused on 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 noted.