9 famous quotes as Ezekwesili bows out of presidential race

With weeks to the elections, former education minister Obiageli Ezekwesili has pulled out of running for president on the platform of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria.

She is to join a coalition to build formidable challenge to both APC, which has Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbajo, and PDP, with Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi.

She has famously been named among newcomers who may change the tide come 2019, given firm promise she will defeat both Buhari and Atiku and vowed to tackle poverty headlong.

Here are her reasons in soundbites.

• “I deem it necessary for me to focus on helping to build a veritable coalition to ensure a viable alternative to the #APCPDP in the forthcoming elections,” she said.
• “It is my ardent belief that this broad coalition for a viable alternative has now become more than ever before, an urgent mission for and on behalf of Nigerian citizens.”
• “I wish to state that over the past three months, I have been in private, but extended talks with other candidates to birth a coalition that would allow Nigerians to exercise their choice without feeling helplessly encumbered by the evil twins of #APCPDP.
• “While the deliberations continued, I never hesitated for a moment in my willingness and determination to sacrifice my candidacy in order to facilitate the emergence of the envisaged strong and viable alternative that Nigerians could identify with in our collective search for a new beginning.
• “My commitment to this promising political recalibration has been consistent and in consonance with my agreement, at the request of candidates under the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) arrangement in 2018, when I consented to supervise the internal selection process as an outside observer passionate about building an alternative force.”
• “However, despite resistance from the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria on these and other issues, I have decided that it is now necessary to show by action and example my determination on this issue by stepping down my candidacy so as to focus squarely on building the coalition to a logical conclusion.
• “We have no right to allow citizens give in to despair. We will #Fight4Naija together and prove to all that the mess, which the political class has now become, should not be allowed to destroy our spirits and nation.
• “From last year, when I joined the presidential race, I made it clear to Nigerians that the country has always had a 20-year cycle of change — 1959, 1979, and 1999.
• “As such, 2019 begins another 20-year cycle, and together with all Nigerians of good will, I stand ready to play my part to ensure that we do not miss this golden opportunity to sing a new song.