The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has joined the presidential race, saying a lot still needs to be done as Nigerians are still hungry and unemployed.
This is even as he begged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off its strike and return to the classroom while federal work on meeting their demands, saying, “there is nothing that ASUU wants that we have not agreed to.”
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Nwajiuba announced the presidential bid at a reception by the Project Nigeria Group, which presented the N100 million All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential forms to him in Abuja, on Wednesday.
Nwajiuba, who lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for his feats in the last seven years, said: “I now solemnly accept to run for us all, and bear our Party’s Flag into the elections and become our next President. I do this recognizing that in the last seven years, President Muhammadu Buhari has performed extraordinary feats in ensuring that our progressive ideas have been established; physical infrastructure of every type and inclusive policies reaching out to our poor and less privileged. As we strive to uplift Nigeria and Nigerians into a developed state.
“A lot still is outstanding and needs to be done. Many of our citizens are still outside, hungry, unemployed. Many more are threatened by unwarranted and unnecessary internal security and economic challenges,” the presidential hopeful stated.
He thanked the group for garnering resources to support his political ambition.
“They have gathered resources from every part of the country and purchased the form for which the APC will nominate a candidate to fly its flag in the Presidential Elections in February 2023, they have now presented this to me,” said Nwajiuba.
“With 30 years of active political experience, the education minister said, “Our calling today invites me to; take up a work path that builds on the solid foundations that have been laid thus far. Provide different paradigns for new challenges and provide the platform for a vista that accommodates subject experts to pull together forces to meet our nation’s challenges.”
On the ongoing ASUU strike, the minister said it is the duty of the government to give life to the 2009 agreement signed with the union to make sure that the universities that the federal government owns are properly funded but that government’s funding is very limited.
“And because of the additional challenges of security, they’ve had to repeatedly borrow money to finance tarp. However, the federal government has continued to contain this and pay the salaries. The quirks of some of the items that are initially included in the demands is the use of IPPIS instead of UTAS developed by ASUU.”
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