Speaking on the occasion of her 50th birthday, former Obasanjo administration cabinet member, Oby Ezekwesili, said she could not understand why people would wanted to enjoy a life that they never worked for.
“I was born to parents who are from a humble family. My daddy was a man of uncompromising integrity. My daddy worked in Nigeria Ports Authority. He used to say to us that the NPA had become a centre of corruption. That was so many years ago. My mother talked my father out of public service because she was afraid for him.
“My mother used to go to what we call bend down boutiques in Tejuosho Market in Lagos to buy clothes for us. She knew what they called grade one okrika (used clothes). We did not have money. We were poor but rich in values. Those values shaped everything about me. From young age, good governance and accountability mattered to me,” she told the congregation.
Ezekwesil, who said she felt “a sense of completion of a certain phase in my life,” added that corruption in governance today might not allow a child of similar background to survive.
“In a relatively decent society, I got the kind of education that has taken me thus far. I was Minister of Education. A similarly poor child, who comes from the kind of family I came from when I was young, would not have the kind of opportunities that I had in this same nation.
“We must therefore build a decent society that does not sow this terrible seed of inequality that I see around me today. When I see the children of drivers, the gardeners and I see that they will not have the kind of education and opportunities that I had, it pains me.”
She also said that she criticized the government dailybecause “democracy is incomplete without the engagement of citizens in the process. The demand for accountability and results is the right of citizens.”
In his homily, Rev. Dr. William Okoye, appealed to Nigerians to shun corruption and be contented.
According to him, any nation that places values on materialism is doomed.
“Life is not about material things that some of us are concerned about today. Life consists of far more than that. When people value money more than life and God, they can do anything. The life you live pursuing mundane things at the expense of God has no blessing and can’t save you.”