“My mother Used To Go To Bend Down Boutiques In Tejuoso – Oby Ezekwesili

Speaking on the occasion of her 50th birthday few days back, 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.
Oby Ezekwesili said.

“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,” Oby Ezekwesili told the congregation.
Oby Ezekwesili, 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.
So it wasn’t only GEJ that didn’t have shoes.