Okonjo-Iweala…Obstacles to her World Bank presidency quest

Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian iron lady. When she was 15, she strapped
her three-year-old, malaria-fevered sister to her back. “It was really
hot, I was very hungry, I was scared because I knew her life depended on
me getting to this woman [doctor],” Okonjo-Iweala recalled in 2007. “I
walked 10 kilometres, putting one foot in front of the other.”
When
she arrived, nearly a thousand people were trying to break down the
door of a makeshift clinic. Okonjo-Iweala crawled between their legs and
climbed through the window, just in time for the doctor to save her
sister’s life. Then came the return journey. “It was the shortest walk I
ever had. I was so happy that my sister was alive. Today she’s 41 years
old, a mother of three and she’s a physician saving other lives.”

From
those wretched days, Okonjo-Iweala rose to become Nigeria’s first
female finance minister and nemesis of corruption. She has been lauded
by Bono and Gordon Brown, who called her “a brilliant reformer”. Now she
is an outside bet for president of the World Bank, an appointment that
would be a watershed moment for Africa and the developing world.
The
Economist magazine put it thus: “When economists from the World Bank
visit poor countries to dispense cash and advice, they routinely tell
governments to reject cronyism and fill each important job with the best
candidate available. It is good advice. The World Bank should take it.
In appointing its next president, the bank’s board should reject the
nominee of its most influential shareholder, America, and pick Nigeria’s
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.”
The
57-year-old is a triple threat with experience in government, in
economics and finance and in development, the magazine argued, a boast
that cannot be made by her rivals, Colombia’s José Antonio Ocampo, or
Barack Obama’s choice, Jim Yong Kim.
Victory
for the Nigerian would shatter the near 70-year duopoly of the World
Bank and IMF enjoyed by America and Europe respectively. As emerging
economies such as Brazil overtake Britain, it would be an
acknowledgement that the global order is recalibrating. It would also be
a defining moment for Africa, long under the boot of foreign powers and
financial institutions, but now enjoying a renaissance with six of the
world’s 10 fastest growing economies.
“The
World Bank was the instrument by which structural adjustment was
imposed on Africa in the 1990s,” said Richard Dowden, director of the
Royal African Society. “It was the most brutal economic policy, it
destroyed the livelihoods of millions of people and caused disruption
and terrible insecurity.
“That
an African should then become head of it would be hugely symbolic. The
bank has been utterly directionless in recent years, and Okonjo-Iweala
would be a great choice to change that. She’s a very bright woman,
absolutely no nonsense: the bullshit factor is extremely low with her.”
Okonjo-Iweala
is a workaholic who, in her little spare time, enjoys swimming and
reading autobiographies and fiction by PD James, Arthur Conan Doyle and
contemporary African writers such as her compatriot Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie. Born in 1954, when Nigeria was still part of the British
empire, it’s been reported that she perfected her English by reading
Enid Blyton, Treasure Island and Bobbsey Twins mysteries. She attended
one of the best schools in the country and studied ballet and the piano
in what she once described as a “magical and happy childhood”.
But
the family’s life was turned upside down by the outbreak of  civil war
in 1967. Her father became a brigadier in the Biafran army and went to
the front line. The family was forced to move from place to place,
surviving on one meal a day or less. The war ended with more than a
million dead, many lost to starvation.
Aged
18, Okonjo-Iweala went to the US to study economics at Harvard and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began working for the World Bank
and married a surgeon, Ikemba. They have one daughter and three sons
including a writer, Uzodinma, whose works include Beasts of No Nation.
Okonjo-Iweala
looked set to be just one more great mind lost to the African diaspora.
But things were changing at home. In 1999 Nigeria emerged from military
dictatorship to hold civilian-run elections. The winner, Olusegun
Obasanjo, asked Okonjo-Iweala to write a brief for economic reform. It
persuaded him she was the woman to bring the chaotic finances to book
and awaken one of Africa’s sleeping giants.
“When
I became finance minister they called me Okonjo-Wahala – or ‘Trouble
Woman’,” she said in a 2005 interview “It means, ‘I give you hell.’ But I
don’t care what names they call me. I’m a fighter; I’m very focused on
what I’m doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a
fault. If you get in my way you get kicked.”
In
2003, Nigeria was deemed the most corrupt place on earth by
Transparency International. Okonjo-Iweala, whose typical working day ran
from 6am to 11pm, set about slaying the dragon that costs the nation
$15bn (£9.37bn) a year. Her team found that there were 5,000 more names
on the civil service payroll than people turning up for work; they used
biometric testing to separate the real workers from the “ghosts”.
Okonjo-Iweala
declared war on the culture of kickbacks, firing officials and
ministers and clamping down on the notorious letter and internet
confidence trick scams by sending hundreds to jail. She made the energy
sector more transparent and targeted political and military leaders who
stole crude oil, making powerful enemies and potentially putting her
life at risk.
She
was the victim of a smear campaign that raised questions over her
salary and house in Washington. There were attacks on her reputation on
the internet. Her home address was published and her husband received
death threats. “Fighting corruption, corruption tends to fight back,”
she told The Observer.
Analysts
suggest it was because she was too good at her job, and following the
money too diligently, that Obasanjo got cold feet and gave her no choice
but to resign. She returned to Washington, and her family, as managing
director of the World Bank from 2007.
Last
year she went back for a second stint as Nigerian finance minister
under President Goodluck Jonathan; in fact many regard her as his prime
minister in all but name. Not everything has gone smoothly, however: she
slashed a $7.5bn (£4.68bn) fuel subsidy that millions of impoverished
Nigerians viewed as their only benefit from the country’s oil wealth,
resulting in mass protests.
Now
she could return to the World Bank yet again, this time succeeding
Robert Zoellick in the top job. She is clearly Africa’s choice, having
received the backing of South Africa, quite a feat at a time when the
continent’s biggest economy and its most populous nation are at each
other’s throats over matters petty and profound.
Nigerian-born
Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Cape Town-based Centre for
Conflict Resolution, said: “It would be incredible. The anachronistic
idea of American and European leadership does not reflect the current
state of the world. It would be a good thing if someone from the global
south were to take over.”
Okonjo-Iweala
has the right credentials for the bank, Adebajo added. “She’s been an
insider there as managing director and is finance minister of one of the
emerging economies which is about to take over from South Africa as the
biggest in Africa. She’s certainly someone of substance and would be
respected.”
Tolu
Ogunlesi, a Nigerian journalist and blogger, said: “I have no doubts
about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s brilliance, competence, and passion for
Nigeria. A lot of the goodwill she has today dates back to the work she
did, alongside others, to clean up Nigeria’s public sector, and clear
our crushing burden of foreign debt.
“But
she lost a chunk of that goodwill during the fuel subsidy protests in
January. Her spirited defence of the subsidy removal – she was one of
the most vocal pro-removal voices – portrayed her as an anti-people
person, and there are Nigerians who will never be able to see her in
another light.”
The
fuel protests have planted doubts over whether Okonjo-Iweala’s
political instincts match her economic judgment. But she countered last
week: “You have fuel protests in the UK right now. This is what happens
in every country. I don’t know why people single Nigeria out.”
No
one doubts her determination to fight Africa’s corner. “The tide has
absolutely turned,” she told the Observer. “After two decades of lost
growth, the last decade has seen strong growth. The continent has
rebounded from the financial crisis quicker than others. I feel very
optimistic. The world is now looking at Africa as an attractive
investment destination as opposed to a place where aid is sent.”
She
is seen as an orthodox economist who takes a pragmatically positive
view of China’s expanding role on the continent. In a TED talk on aid
versus trade in 2007, she argued: “The UK and the US could not have been
built today without Africa’s aid. It is all the resources that were
taken from Africa including humans that built these countries today. So
when they try to give back we shouldn’t be on the defensive. The issue
is not that. The issue is how we are using what is being given back? How
are we using it? Is it being directed effectively?”

The Okonjo-Iweala File

Born Ngozi Okonjo in Delta State, Nigeria, on 13 June 1954, the
daughter of academics. She married her childhood sweetheart, Ikemba
Iweala, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and has a daughter,
Onyi, and three sons: Uzodinma, Okechukwu and Uchechi.

Best of times 

By 2006, Okonjo-Iweala’s crusade against corruption had won her the Nigerian of the Year award.

Worst of times 

At the end of the Biafran war in 1970, her family had lost
everything. Okonjo-Iweala’s father asked his seven children: “Look
around you. What do you have?” Okonjo-Iweala replied: “Nothing.” He
corrected: “You have a head on your shoulders and you have a brain. Use
it. Even if you lost everything, you can start again.”

She says 

“I think being a woman makes you able to deal with a lot of things –
and still keep sane. I also think women have less ego. If someone’s
saying things to make me feel bad, I don’t care as long as I get the job
done. When it comes to doing my job, I keep my ego in my handbag.”