2023 Polls: Nwajiuba Declares For Presidency, Picks APC Forms, As Amosu Joins, Set To Declare

The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, has declared his interest to run for presidency in the 2023 general elections.

He made the declaration on Wednesday in Abuja shortly after receiving the nomination and expression of interest forms of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

This is even as the Senate has received an invitation from Senator Ibikunle Amosun, representing Ogun Central, to his formal declaration to contest for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A coalition of youths across the country under the aegis of Project Nigeria Group purchased the forms for the minister of Education, Nwajiuba – a week after the ruling party announced that its nomination and expression of interest forms cost N100 million.

While receiving the forms, Nwajiuba explained that his decision to run for the presidency was in recognition of President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance in the last seven years.

According to him, the President has achieved extraordinary feats in ensuring that the progressive ideas of his administration are established.

He stated that despite all the achievements by the current administration, a lot still needed to be done as many of the citizens were hungry, unemployed, and threatened by insecurity.

“Our calling today invites me to take up a work path that builds on the solid foundations that have been laid thus far, provides different paradigms for new challenges, and provides the platform for a vista that accommodates subject experts to pull together forces to meet our nation’s challenges,” he said.

“This is the path I propose to thread, having been properly schooled, experienced, and tested in the last 30 years of active politics.

“I, therefore, invite our dear party and its great men and women, to forge that trust in me as their new symbol of unity, growth, and regeneration, as we step into the future with renewed zeal and optimism.”

Amosu’s invitation to his formal declaration was extended to the upper chamber in a letter dated 25th April, 2022, and read at plenary by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

According to Amosun, the event which is scheduled to take place on the 5th of May, 2022, would hold at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, at 11 a.m (NGT).

The invitation letter, addressed to the Senate President, reads in part, “It is with great respect that I write to notify you and my Distinguished Colleagues of my intention to contest for the Office of the President of our dear country, the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to respectfully invite you and my Distinguished Colleagues to the formal declaration ceremony.

“I have been blessed by God to serve as Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria between 2003 and 2007 and as two-term Governor of Ogun State between 2011 and 2019.

”I have also had the privilege to be elected a second time to the Senate of the Federal Republic in 2019 where I currently serve the good people of Ogun Central Senatorial District.

“My varied experience in private and public life has imbued me with requisite insights, experiences and network of relationships adequate to provide a leadership that will galvanize our dear country to achieve her manifest destiny as leader in Africa and of the black race.”