The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has called on the Federal Government to put social safety nets in place for poor Nigerians who are feeling the pains of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms.
Okonjo-Iweala stated this on Thursday after a meeting with the president at the Aso Villa in Abuja.
Though she commended the president for the economic reforms including petrol subsidy removal and the unification of the foreign exchange windows, the former Nigerian finance minister said the government must put social safety nets in place for poor Nigerians to cope with the economic hardship occasioned by the government’s reforms.
A vendor counts her money as a girl looks on at the Lokoja International Market in Lokoja on October 21, 2024.
In a chat with newsmen after she met with the president, the WTO boss said, “We think that the President and his team have worked hard to stabilize the economy. You cannot really improve an economy unless it is stable. So, he has to be given the credit for the stability of the economy. The reforms have been in the right direction.
“What is needed next is growth; we now need to grow the economy and we need to put in social safety nets so that people who are feeling the pinch of the reforms can also have some support to weather the hardship. That’s the next step.”
Tinubu, who launched a string of economic reforms when he assumed office in May 2023, has come under heavy criticism in over two years, as many Nigerians have attributed soaring food inflation and skyrocketing cost of living to his removal of petrol subsidy and the unification of foreign exchange windows.
Angry citizens have held a number of rallies to protest the hardship faced by the middle class and ordinary citizens in the last two years, the most prominent of them being the hunger protests or #EndBadGovernance demonstrations of August 2024.
The Nigerian president’s meeting with Okonjo-Iweala took place two weeks before the expiration of her first term as WTO Director-General on August 31, 2025, and the commencement of her second term on September 1, 2025.
The renowned development economist and global finance expert made history in 2021 as the first African and first woman to lead the 164-nation-member WTO.
The WTO chief, accompanied by Trade Minister Jumoke Oduwole, also briefed the president on the progress made on the Women’s Exporters’ Fund for the digital economy.
Okonjo-Iweala said, “We came to brief him about something very joyful that we did today with the help of the first lady.
“We launched a Women’s Exporters’ Fund for the digital economy. This is a fund that is jointly managed by the World Trade Organisation and the International Trade Centre and supports women to weather the storms of the economy and create jobs for themselves.
“It is part of the thinking of the social safety net and what we can do to support Nigerian women to contribute more to the economy and themselves.
“Nigeria competed and one one of four countries that won globally to be part of this initiative.
“We have 67,000 Nigerian women who applied for this, and 146 of them won, and they are going to have money disbursed directly to them.
“16 of them won what we called the Booster Track; those who already have businesses, but their businesses would be scaled up. They would receive technical and business support from the WTO and the ITC for 18 months.
“Another 100 would get $5,000 each to start and strengthen their businesses, with 12-month reforms.”