The days that most of the leaders in the technology ecosystem in Nigeria choose to sit on the proverbial political fence or to support a popular candidate from a popular party may be gone. The presidential campaign of Obiageli Ezekwesili, presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) is enjoying unprecedented mobilisation efforts from notable tech leaders.
Ezekwesili faces a near impossible mission of clinching the presidency come 2019. For starters, Nigeria has never had a woman as a president; hence, Ezekwesili’s – highly unlikely – victory will make her the first in Africa’s most populous country.
Second, elections in Nigeria are still heavily biased along ethnic and religious lines. It will be a miracle to see Ezekwesili taking any votes from the northern region for instance, where the two frontline candidates, the current President and APC’s Muhammad Buhari and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, the closest rival, hail from.
But the tech leaders manning Ezekwesili’s presidential campaign seem unperturbed by the odds ahead. It is early days in the presidential campaign which kicked off 1 December, 2018 according to INEC‘s calendar.
Mark Essien, the CEO of Hotels.ng who has become very vocal on issues around governance and has criticized previous and current government administrations for the manner in which they handled the country’s economy appears to be one of the figureheads commanding the efforts to sell Ezekwesili as the preferred candidate to the tech community and Nigerians.
BusinessDay reached out to him for comments but he has not responded as at time of publishing this article.
As part of his mobilisation efforts, Essie conducted a Twitter poll asking followers to choose between Oby Ezekwesili and Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate, “If these were the only candidates in the country.” The polls result was 68 per cent in favour of Ezekwesili while Abubakar managed to get 32 per cent of the votes.
Since then Essien has made efforts to recruit tech savvy volunteers including software developers, graphic designers and video producers.
“If you are sick of Nigerian politics as usual, with the same old politicians, instead of doing nothing – just vote @obyezeks and @acpnhope,” he wrote in a post. “Your one vote is the way you can protest and say that you are tired.”
His activities enjoy the support of other tech leaders such as Emeka Azuka Okoye, CEO of Cymantiks Nigeria Limited, Bosun Tijani, co-founder of Co-Creation Hub, Nigeria’s foremost innovation hub, and Samuel Aboyeji, co-founder and former CEO of Flutterwave among others.
“She is a believer of human capital development which is a foundation for building a science and technology ecosystem that Nigeria can leverage to 1) Improve employability 2) Improve living standard 3) Improve economy and reduce dependence on oil 4) Improve production of goods and service,” Okoye told BusinessDay via a tweet.
Okoye is also recruiting volunteer developers for the campaign.
Aboyeji who recently stepped down as the CEO of fintech company, Flutterwave, for family reasons, has taken on political activism on social media. His objective is to “free Nigeria from an irresponsible and evil political class.”
Like Essien, Aboyeji has become a big admirer of Ezekwesili and to demonstrate his fandom, he is participating vigorously in the campaign to elect Ezekwesili.
“I’m backing @obyezeks for President because I believe she is the best qualified for the job. Feel free to back whoever you want but please not APC and PDP. They have raped our country enough. Let them go and sit in the countries where they have stashed our common wealth,” Aboyeji said.
Aboyeji not only appeared with the candidate at a Townhall with Nigerians in Diaspora on Sunday, 2 December in Leicester, UK, he went as far as mobilizing intellectual heavyweights like Professor David Mba, pro-Vice Chancellor and dean Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, United Kingdom.
He is also leading a donation campaign, rallying benevolent sympathizers to give to the campaign.
At the base of Aboyeji’s discontent with the current administration could be this tweet, “Let’s call a spade a spade – they failed. Alongside Ogbonnaya Onu and Adebayo Shittu, this government lost major points with the future because it keeps handing out key posts as CPC party membership spoils.”
Bosun Tijani who is probably the most popular and active voice on Ezekwesili’s campaign train also attended the townhall in Leicester. He is one of the early endorsers of Ezekwesili and has since dedicated his Twitter timeline to issues around the campaign.
“As a citizen, give me @Obyezeks, @MBuhari, and @atiku’s profiles – I won’t think twice before opting for @Obyezeks,” Tijani tweeted in November. “I follow my dream and hope for Nigeria, not political analysis.
“I am rooting for @obyezeks because she has demonstrated consistent leadership since I came across her name. Within and outside government – leadership is a lifelong work, it is not something you do when elected.”
