FORMER Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) presidential candidate Obiageli Ezekwesili has officially resigned from the party.
The former Minister of Education said she has returned ACPN membership card, its flag and other items in her possession to the party.
She made her position clear in her speech titled: “A sacrifice for a new political order”, delivered at a news conference yesterday in Abuja.
The former minister said she was wrong to believe that the party’s value aligned with her’s.
Mrs. Ezekwesili said the party leadership demonstrated in deeds that they did not believe in her advocacy for a cleaner politics.
She said: “Let me take a moment to address what appears to be an error of judgment that made me run on the platform of the quality of people that ACPN turned out to harbour. As you know, until I decided to run for President last October, I was not a politician, but strictly a public policy expert.
“I have always believed that the brand of politics we practice in this country is perverse and unappealing to me.
“I knew that along the way I will face tests of my values, but I didn’t expect it so soon and not from the party members who had assured me privately and publicly that they were on the same page with me. In truth, our values were poles apart.
“I cannot do anything that contradicts my eternal values. For someone who was running for office with a promise to fix our politics, getting mired in the mud of transactional anti-people politics would have represented a quick fall. God forbid! I had to live my values; I had to follow my truth. And I am proud I did.”
Mrs. Ezekwesili explained that she withdrew from the presidential race because of the desperation of the leadership of ACPN to get money from her foreign contacts.
The former minister said she wasn’t surprised that her former party endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari few hours after she quit the presidential race.
Mrs. Ezekwesili said her immediate commitment is to help build a coalition.
According to her, the way to continue the fight for Nigeria was for a coalition of alternatives to come together and end the poverty escalating reign of the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party in two weeks.
She added that her campaign was able to gather N48 million, spent N45 million with a balance of N3 million.
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