‘Skills of leadership are not ad hoc’ – Ezekwesili speaks on 3 main presidential candidates

Former ninister of education, Oby Ezekwesili, has reacted on the three closest candidates contesting in the 2023 presidential election.

There are 18 presidential candidates from same number of political parties vying for the office of the president.

But for Ezekwesili, only three candidates stand out, and she prefers just one of them to emerge winner.

“Somebody says to you between a cast of possible presidents that include the three frontrunners that we currently have – a possible president Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi – do you need anybody to tell you where you would be going? It would be an Obi,” Ezekwesili said on Sunday during a Channels TV interview.

“Regardless of the fact that he comes from that particular political class that we are talking about, he still at least represents many more shapes than the other two top candidates.

“We have actually lacked the kind of leadership that in one person and persons, in other words, our leadership class and our political class, we’ve not seen an amalgam of people with the requisite skills of leadership.

“Skills of leadership are not ad hoc, they’re not things that happen by virtue of somebody thinking ‘I could be a leader’. So those attributes of competence, of character, of capacity – there is a deliberateness behind it that then enables people to mobilise the kind of action that is necessary to deliver.”

The former education minister lauded the youth movement behind Obi, saying the momentum intends to “deeply evaluate the kind of leader to be elected” in the face of bad leadership in the country.