Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has blasted the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for an alleged claim to be the head of the Economic Management Team while he was Vice President to Former President Obasanjo.
Atiku tweeted on Monday that “As head of the economic management team while I was Vice President, I was instrumental in designing a private sector revival strategy and advocated for the opening of the economy for private sector investments in several sectors. And we made tremendous progress.”
Reacting to the tweet, Ezekwesili accused Atiku of allegedly telling a lie, she also revealed that the former vice president was never the head of the economic management team.
She said, “Dear former Vice President Atiku, please ask the handlers of your Twitter account to stop misleading the public. You were never the Head of the Economic Management Team. This absurd lie does you no good at all. Please ask your team to stop it. Happy New Year. I wish you well.”
“There is a difference between the Economic Management Team set up for the first time ever in 2003 by President Obasanjo and the National Economic Council established by the 1999 Constitution as amended; Section 153(1) and Paragraphs 18 & 19 of Part I of the Third Schedule.
“The Presidential Economic Management Team (we called it “The Economic Team” for brevity) was a Technical Team of 12 persons from a range of expertise whom President Obasanjo constituted to drive Nigeria’s Economic Reform Agenda during his 2nd Term in office 2003-2007.” (Blueprint)
