Advertisement

Enugu 2023 Guber Race: Bart Nnaji joins race, as group presents purchased PDP forms to him

Chetanne Chinelo, Enugu

Advertisement

A group known as Coalition for Good Governance in Nigeria, has purchased and presented the PDP Governorship nomination and expression of interest forms to a former Minister for Power, Professor Bart O. Nnaji, calling on him to join the 2023 gubernatorial race in Enugu.

The group made the presentation Sunday, at Prof. Bart’s Umuode country home, in Nkanu East local council of Enugu State.

Nnaji, who was recently asked about his guber ambition in an exclusive interview with The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine, did not quickly assert or deny his rumored ambition to run for Governor of Enugu State.

Advertisement

Professor Bart O. Nnaji who has also been published by The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine as one of the likely Guber candidates in Enugu State, is Chairman/CEO, Geometric Power Limited, the first indigenous private sector power company in Nigeria.

He was the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Engineering at University of Pittsburgh, and spearheaded the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Center of excellence for E-Design and Robotics. He was Professor of Engineering and Director of Automation and Robotics at the University of Massachusetts, USA.

He served Nigeria as Minister of Power; Minister of Science and Technology; Special Adviser to the President on Power; and Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power.

Advertisement

He has also served as General Chairman of many International conferences including the World Conference on Robotics Research (1991).

His national awards include Commander of the Order of Niger (CON) by Nigeria’s President; and Nigeria National Order of Merit (NNOM) (Nigeria’s highest intellectual merit award); U.S. Secretary of State’s Distinguished Public Service Award; Distinguished Scientist Award by World Bank-IMF Africa Group; Baker Distinguished Research Award (highest research award by the International Institute of Industrial Engineers IIE), amongst others.

He has been awarded honorary Doctorates in Engineering, Science & Technology from 5 universities.

Advertisement

His declaration has been received with mixed feelings, typical of all guber declarations made so far in the capital of the Southeast region. While some have kicked against it on social media, believing that with his wealth of experience as a former Minister in two different Ministries and dispensation, he should run for President, especially with the cries of a Nigerian President of Southeast extraction, others have welcomed his race wholeheartedly.

One of such, who is a UK based Enugu citizen, spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity. In his words ‘Now, this is a competent man with a track record we can verify. Why won’t they (PDP) give him the ticket? The excuse of we have no better alternative cannot exist now. He’s literally there’.

Prof. Nnaji has been leading a group called Nkanu East Consultative Forum, and the group has been reckoned for embarking on consultative visits to stakeholders in Enugu’s politics, irrespective of the party, canvassing for Nkanu East to be supported to produce the Governor of Enugu State after the incumbent, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

The last two weeks have seen a lot of persons declare interest to run for Governor under PDP and gone ahead to purchase the forms sold at a total of 21 million naira.