By Charles Okogene
Former Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is now trending on the cyberspace for all the good reasons that she has been appointed by the South Africa President Cyril Ramphosa to head or become a member of his country’s economic team, first came to the notice of Nigerians when President Olusegun Obsasanjo invited her home from her IMF job to assume the position of finance minister in his cabinet.
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Within a few years in the government, Okonjo-Iweala made her impact felt so much that she not only survived all through the administration but was one of the few ministers that the subsequent governments of Umaru Musa Yar; Adua/Goodluck Jonathan inherited from their predecessor. While there, she warmed her way into the hearts of most Nigerians including Obasanjo with the way she got her former employers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to cancel the nation’s huge debt, some of which were questionable debts that the then military administrations plunged Nigeria into. Though, this was aside other polices she initiated to help the government of the day block all loopholes through which crooked Nigerians stole the nation blind.
Even at that, some gullible Nigerians and political opponents of Obasanjo and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saw nothing to cheer in that so much that at the twilight of the Obasanjo’s eight year tenure, she was moved from Finance to Foreign Affairs Ministry, an action, which led to her resignation while she promptly returned to IMF.
That was how the nation paid her back for coming back home to contribute her quota to her fatherland until the duo of Yar’Adua/Jonathan took over the baton of leadership and extended an invitation, a second time, to her to come back home. And like they say that ‘no place like home’, Okonjo-Iweala over looked the humiliation of the immediate past, accepted the invite and returned to offer her service. And like she did in her first time out, she dazzled and impressed again as under her watch, Nigeria’s economy was catapulted to the number one spot of the biggest economy in Africa; a position, which the country has returned to again, albeit, by default, due to South Africa’s slip to recession. This might have informed the decision of our South African brothers to tap from her knowledge on how to manage a nation’s economy by asking her to head or become a member of the body tasked with the responsibly of breathing life back into the South African economy.
Whichever way, it is a recognition of her knowledge of how to fix a nation’s economy and like they say, ‘na she/Nigeria win.’
While Okonjo-Iweala /South Africa are the toast of the moment; it is also important to point out that this is not the first time Nigerians have or are dazzling the world. Justice Akinola Aguda did it when he took his legal expertise to the Gambia as the Chief Judge of that African country,while His Excellency,Judge Bola Ajibola was once a member of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague.
In another breadth, Professor Akinwunmi , former minister of Agriculture was also recently reappointed as the president of African Development Bank(ADB), after serving on Jonathan’s government, among others.
Born into the family of professors (both parents were professors) from Ogwashi Uku in Delta State, Okonjo-Iweala is married to an Abia State born medical doctor husband and both are based in America. Like her brother wrote in his Facebook timeline, “…Dr (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a true daughter of my late father HRM Obi Professor Chukuka Okonjo. An Adaigbo daughter, Umu Obi Obahai daughter, Delta State daughter and a shining example of what a true Nigerian woman is… A Goldfish will never have any hiding place.”
