TheNewsGuru

Tag: Okonjo Iweala

  • WTO DG, Okonjo Iweala urges Nigeria to plan for non-oil future

    WTO DG, Okonjo Iweala urges Nigeria to plan for non-oil future

    The Director General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has advised Nigeria to plan for a future without revenues from fossil fuels as the world transits to renewable energy.

    Speaking during a press conference in Abuja, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said as other countries ban the use of fossil fuels and move to the use of electric cars, Nigeria will have no market for oil and gas.

    “Nigeria must start thinking of a just transition and since Africa and Nigeria don’t emit most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we can ask other countries that we are interested in helping on climate change, but could we have a reasonable period of time within which we can transit from the use of fossil fuels,” she said.

    The WTO boss said Nigeria could negotiate for more time to use fossil fuel domestically during the transition period.

    “We really need to move to renewable energy because there will be no demands for our products and we ourselves want to contribute to this issue of mitigating carbon emissions.”

    Executive Director of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) Olusegun Awolowo said the council developed a zero oil plan to promote an export-led development agenda for Nigeria

    “A clear area of focus for us has been a drive to gain significant participation of women in non-oil exports.”

    Awolowo said the SheTrades programme of the council, meant to ramp up the participation of women in trade and export business, has been successful.

  • Burna Boy, Wizkid grammy awards, example of services to export – Okonjo-Iweala

    Burna Boy, Wizkid grammy awards, example of services to export – Okonjo-Iweala

    Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of World Trade Organisation (WTO), has applauded Nigeria’s Afrobeats stars, Burna Boy and Wizkid, for wining awards at the 2021 Grammy, saying such services should be encouraged for export in Nigeria.

    OKonjo-Iweala, on Tuesday in Abuja, while meeting with captains of industry sector, said with Nigeria’s large number of educated people, it has a comparative advantage in services with rooms to improve.

    Burna Boy, whose real name is Damini Ogulu, won the Best Global Music Album category with his `twice as tall’, while Wizkid won the Best Video for his song with Beyonce.

    The WTO director-general described the entertainment industry as a vibrant services sector embodied by artists, writers and the new generation of Nigerian musicians, actors and film makers.

    “Recently Nigeria’s Burna Boy and Wizkid won the grammy award for their music and I will like to congratulate and applaud them because they were an example of services we can export.

    “We are exporting so much of our creative arts abroad and this seems to be encouraged,” she said.

    She further said Nigeria’s economy was at a critical juncture, adding that insufficient structural change had made Nigeria more vulnerable to shocks from the fall in oil prices five years ago.

    This, she said, was coupled with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

    She said the looming transition to a low carbon global economy implied more changes ahead, hence careful economic planning and management will be vital.

    Speaking on change, she said Nigeria and WTO could help support the process of change because economic growth had been sluggish since 2016 when fallen oil prices pushed Nigeria’s economy to reccession.

    The director-general recalled that before COVID-19 hit the global economy, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2018 and 2019 was in the neigbourhood of two per cent with population growth at around 2.5 per cent.

    “The world bank estimates that even without the pandemic two million Nigerians would have fallen into poverty in 2020, the pandemic induced recession is likely to have pushed an additional five million Nigerians into poverty in 2020.

    “Nigeria’s economy shrinked by 2.2 per cent in 2020 and will only recover to 1.5 per cent growth in 2021 according to IMF data.

    “With the domestic market of over 200 million people accounting to close to Africa’s economics outlook Nigeria has the potential to be an engine of investment, innovation and job creation in West Africa,” she said.

    Okonjo-Iweala further said that in 2019 Nigeria accounted for 0.3 per cent of global machendise trade according to WTO data.

    She stated that though the seventh most populous country in the world ranked 48th in the mechandise export and 84th for export of commercial services like cargo, transport and business, among others.

    The former finance minister noted that Nigeria’s trade with other African countries made up of 19 per cent of intra African trade in 2019, roughly in line with the country share in continental.

    This, she said, indicated that only 6.5 per cent of Nigeria’s import came from elsewhere in Africa.

  • Nigerian economy on the verge of collapse, needs urgent reform – WTO DG Okonjo-Iweala

    Nigerian economy on the verge of collapse, needs urgent reform – WTO DG Okonjo-Iweala

    The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Monday said Nigeria maybe heading towards economic collapse if it failed to immediately embark on diversification from oil to other sources for survival.

    The two term former finance minister highlighted some steps the nation can take to avert imminent economic collapse in no distance future. The steps include diversification of the economy, bold economic reforms and pursuit of technological development.

    Painting a gloomy picture of fossil oil, the first African and woman WTO DG urged speed, stressing that delay could be dangerous.

    She stressed: “We need to have a game plan to be able to escape the consequence of a monolithic economy in a fast-changing world.”

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that Okonjo-Iweala spoke with reporters, shortly after visiting President Muhammadu Buhari to thank him and Nigerians for their role in her emergence as the head of the WTO.

    She said the diversification of the economy was one of the issues she discussed with the President

    According to her, Nigeria should tap into renewable energies, since some countries have already set timelines to end the use of vehicles and equipment operated with fossil fuel.

    Specifically, Okonjo-Iweala mentioned Norway which will from 2030 no longer have petrol-powered cars plying its roads.

    She said: “We have to start transitioning this Nigerian economy into other areas, where we will be able to create jobs and earn foreign exchange.

    “As a country, we really have to go into strong reflection; we need to have a period of transition and how we are going to use it. We have to start thinking about how we transition from fossil fuels and I’m really worried about that. We need to have a game plan to get there.

    We also have to start looking at the horizon where many countries are now moving to electric cars and many developed countries where cars are manufactured or not, have said that from 2025, I think Norway said from 2030 and on, they are banning any cars that use petrol. Diesel is already out.

    “If we don’t start, we will find ourselves at the end of a couple of decades with no way of being able to make an additional foreign exchange for some of the products we need.”

    Although she welcomed the establishment of the Dangote Refinery, the WTO boss said she wished it had come earlier than now.

    She added: “Well, it’s the largest refinery, I wish we had done it years ago. If we had done it earlier and encouraged Alhaji Dangote, who is doing a very good thing, it could have been better because right now, we would have been able to have our own oil refined here and not having to import.

    “But we are where we are. I think he’ll be able to service other countries on the continent. His cement industry is already in 16 or more. So, yes, we are congratulating him,”

    The WTO chief also said the world body was worried about Nigeria’s multiple exchange rate regimes and how they affects trade.

    She said some member-states have complained about Nigeria invoking its balance of payment agreement article to be able to conserve foreign exchange.

    Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said: “The WTO has one of the agreements of a balance of payments and Nigeria certainly invoked this to be able to conserve foreign exchange.

    “Some members have brought a complaint against us (Nigeria) that we shouldn’t have used its article in that way. The WTO is concerned about foreign exchange, the way we manage it, the way we use it, and how we use it to support manufacturing or imports and exports in our economy.

    “I think that we had that discussion with them, they complained about the exchange rate regime, and we (Nigeria) tried to explain. Anyway, I shouldn’t say we because I’m now DG WTO, it is for Nigeria’s representative to explain to the WTO, to those members complaining why we’re doing this.

    “We’re also going to see the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (Godwin Emefiele), and we will undoubtedly discuss some of these issues.”

  • Buhari meets WTO DG, Okonjo-Iweala in Abuja

    Buhari meets WTO DG, Okonjo-Iweala in Abuja

    President Muhammadu Buhari is currently meeting with the newly appointed Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that the Nigeria’s former finance minister, who is on a four-day official visit, was accompanied to the villa by the Ministers of Industry, Trade and Investment, Chief Niyi Adebayo; Foreign Affairs, Geoffery Onyeama; and Minister of state for Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajiya Maryam Katagum.

    The visiting WTO boss had earlier met with the Ministers of Finance, Dr Zainab Ahmed, and that of Foreign Affairs, Geofrey Onyeama.

    Okonjo-Iweala is expected to address the media after the meeting with the president.

    Details later…

  • WTO DG, Okonjo-Iweala to meet Buhari on Monday, to engage FG on growing Nigeria’s economy

    WTO DG, Okonjo-Iweala to meet Buhari on Monday, to engage FG on growing Nigeria’s economy

    The newly appointed Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who arrived Nigeria on a five-day working visit on Saturday has promised that WTO will assist Nigeria in improving its economy.

    The visit, designed to enable her appreciate the support of the federal government towards her emergence would see her hold discussions with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, March 15.

    Also, she has been scheduled to engage other top players in public and private sectors, including ministers on how to leverage the WTO and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to improve trade and the economy.

    The former Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, who arrived the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja via an Ethiopian airliner with registration number, ET 911, which touched down at exactly 12pm was received by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo and other top officials of the ministry.

    Okonjo-Iweala was accompanied on the visit from Geneva, Switzerland by some ambassadors, including those from the Republic of Barbados and Cameroon.
    Shortly after the airport formalities at the presidential wing of the airport, she was driven in a motorcade to her private residence in Abuja.

    In a brief interview with journalists, the WTO DG said her visit was to see how to better leverage the WTO and AfCFTA to assist Nigeria and entrepreneurs to improve the economy, expressing optimism that Nigeria could use the AfCFTA to boost trade and investment.

    She said: “I am not going to give you all the points for the visit today; I know you want them. But what we are trying to do indeed is how to boost Nigeria’s share of trade in Africa. We hope to be able to use the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to improve our trade, and of course, to do that you have to improve our investment.
    “We have to add value to some of our products. This continental free trade agreement is a unique opportunity for us to be able to engage commercially with other African nations and that will boost our exports. Then, when you boost exports, you will create more jobs.

    “We are also going to talk about digital economy and how our young people are accessing the Internet for e-commerce. Those are some of the issues. What can we do to support more of that and generate more activities?”
    On her itinerary, she said she would meet with President Buhari and several top government officials as well as players in the private sectors, including women entrepreneurs.

    “I will meet with His Excellency, the President; the Chief of Staff; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment; the Minister of Foreign Affairs; Minister of Finance; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Organised Private Sector as well as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and women entrepreneurs.
    “I will like to meet with the women, and the whole objective is to see how the WTO can better assist Nigerian and Nigerian entrepreneurs with respect to improving the economy.”

    Speaking on her emergence as the Director General of WTO, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, said it was a proud moment for Nigeria and Africa.
    Sani-Gwarzo noted that it was a unique moment and opportunity to thank the world for supporting Nigeria to achieve the feat of having a Nigerian as the head of the WTO.

    “We have received a lot of support from many countries, we appreciate them. Her visit is specifically to start from home to say thank you to the President and Nigerians, who supported her from home and in the Diaspora.
    “Tremendous support has gone into the process and we are grateful that she emerged, after a very thoroughly contested process as the DG. It is a proud moment for Nigeria, for herself and also for women in the world,” Sani-Gwarzo noted.
    According to the itinerary of her visit released by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okonjo-Iweala, who assumed office on March 1, 2021 is scheduled to meet with President Buhari; Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Industry Trade and Investment Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo on Monday.

    On Tuesday, she is billed to meet with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele; the Presidential Task on COVID-19 head by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha and the Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chinwe Ihekweazu as well as captains of industries.
    The WTO DG is also to meet with women entrepreneurs, and MSMEs players.

  • IWD: Win some, lose some, hope for the best -Francis Ewherido

    IWD: Win some, lose some, hope for the best -Francis Ewherido

    By Francis Ewherido

    Monday, the 8th of March 2021, is International Women’s Day (IWD), a global day for recognition and celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and girls, and raising awareness of the work left to be done. Women surely have something to celebrate this year.

    On January 20, Kamala Harris became the Vice President of the United States, the first time a woman is occupying that position. Our own Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also emerged the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, the first time a woman is occupying that seat.

    The goals of IWD sit well with me because women’s matter is my matter. I have a mother, wife, daughters, nieces, other female relatives and female friends. I, especially, want a better deal for my daughters, nieces and other young girls than women before them had or are having.

    Our daughters, wives, female friends, relatives and even mothers and grandmothers are under siege. Rape is a monster and all men and people of good must speak up.

    I do not believe women are inferior to men. God made us all in His image and likeness, but assigned different roles to men and women. I firmly believe that all parents should create a level-playing field in their homes, where all their children (male and female) can blossom and achieve their full potentials.

    But this is not what I see in some homes. The parents send all the children to the same schools, make the same provisions for them and create a semblance of a level-playing field. But some still practice favouritism, based on gender.

    They create an atmosphere that makes their son(s) feel superior to their sisters and this affects the psyche of the daughters. I do not see any reason why parents cannot treat all their children well so that none feels inferior to the other. But if you must have your favourites, manage your dangerous disposition well so that you do not destroy the lives of your own children or sow seeds of discord.

    On a day like this, one cannot but remember the challenges women face in our society. Rape is one of the major problems females face today and they do not seem to have a place of refuge. It is happening in places like homes, churches, mosques, schools and offices, where they ought to feel safe.

    Their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, other male relatives and male domestic workers; pastors, imams, teachers and other school officials; superiors and other male colleagues in offices, and people who ought to be trusted are the major culprits in these places. It is also happening in abandoned buildings, vehicles, brothels and hotels, where it is perpetrated mainly by known faces and strangers.

    Our daughters, wives, female friends, relatives and even mothers and grandmothers are under siege. Rape is a monster and all men and people of good must speak up.

    Some people say the penis has a mind of its own mind. May be, but it is part of your body, a small but significant part. You must discipline it and have self-control. You should not submit to the whims and caprices of your penis and perpetrate violence. No to rape. Secularly speaking, sex must be consensual and with adults only.

    Close to it are other forms of sexual harassments. The minimum again is that sex must be consensual. It should not be used in exchange for employment, promotion or other favours. The stories coming out of offices are not pleasant. No woman – young, old, single, married, Christian, Muslim, atheist – is spared. They are all being sexually harassed. The tales by widows are also not pleasant.

    Unfortunately, some of the tormentors of these widows are their late husbands’ male relatives and friends; very shocking animalistic behaviour. Sometimes, you wonder if some of these men even had a hand in the death of the men whose widows they are harassing. Sexual harassment is so bad now that when you grant some women favours, they expect you to ask for sex in return. And some actually behave as if they are ready to offer you sex in return.

    Education of the girl child is another sore point. Often some of us, who are educated and comparatively privileged, forget that we are still in the minority. Education of children, especially the girl child, remains a big problem. Over 10 million children are not in school in Nigeria and many of them are girls.

    And more of that number, who are in school, are not getting quality education due to poverty, poor school infrastructure and unqualified teachers, amongst others.

    This is a problem that is at the doorstep of state governments. Free and compulsory education is official for children between 4 to 15 years in Nigeria. The public school system needs to be revived. Most of us in our 50s and above went to public schools. These are not the type of public schools we went to. The entire system has deteriorated.

    Some of the problems women face are geographical and environmental. Women who live in Nigeria, for instance, cannot be insulated from the challenges every Nigerian has to deal with it. So like other Nigerians, women also need to re-double their efforts to succeed in Nigeria. Sometimes gender excuses are not tenable. Just go out there and rough it out.

    The theme of this year’s IWD is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” This theme looks like something that was not well thought out to me. The priority of everyone for now, including women, should be how to survive COVID-19. You have to be alive to have a future. When I saw the theme, it reminded me of an old saying: “Me dje, wo dje; wo novwe si die twavwe…. (I am running, you are running; you are asking me what is pursuing me….?).”

    In order words, you do not engage in trivialities during emergencies. That is what this theme seems to suggest. If a woman running yawa race (race of life and death) remembers to put her arm across her chest to prevent her breasts from flapping, she does not know what she is up against. The race to survive COVID-19 is a yawa race, how can these women be putting their arms across their chests to prevent their breasts from flapping (talking about “equal future in a COVID-19 world”).

    Let us face the race to be alive first. Thereafter, we can talk about “equal future,” which, in my understanding, is a future where all humans can realize their potentials irrespective of gender. Even on this, we can only sensitise and put it on the front burner. We are nowhere near getting to this “equal future.” The entire world is currently skewed because wealth, race, culture, religion, geographical location, education, among many other factors. Gender is just one of the reasons and it is not isolated. It is tied to education, race, religion, geographical factors and other reasons. But let us leave all that for now and just congratulate the womenfolk again on the ascension of Harris and Okonjo-Iweala. We also wish them a fruitful International Women’s Day.

  • Swiss newspaper apologises to Okonjo-Iweala for labelling her ‘grandmother’

    Swiss newspaper apologises to Okonjo-Iweala for labelling her ‘grandmother’

    Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Former Nigerian Finance Minister and the first woman and African to be appointed as Director-General of the World Trade Organization on Monday welcomed an apology from a Swiss newspaper that had labelled her as a ‘grandmother’ at expense of her professional status.

    “It is important & timely that they’ve apologised,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a tweet.

    The development economist took over as the new WTO chief on Monday after a long, high-powered career serving as minister of finance and foreign affairs in her native Nigeria and 25 years at the World Bank.

    But when several Swiss newspapers announced her appointment last month, they decided the most noteworthy thing to mention about the new WTO chief was as a matriarch.

    “This grandmother will become the boss of the WTO,” read the headline of the article published by the Aargauer Zeitung and several other papers on February 9.

    After a number of women heads of UN agencies and more than 120 ambassadors in Geneva last week signed a petition calling out the headline as racist and sexist, the paper apologised.

    “This headline was inappropriate and unsuitable… We apologise for this editorial mistake,” the paper’s foreign editor-in-chief Samuel Schumacher said in a statement on Friday.

    In her tweet, Ngozi welcomed the apology and said she was “thankful to all my sisters, UN Women Leaders and the 124 Ambassadors in Geneva who signed the petition on calling out the racist & sexist remarks in this newspaper.”

    “We need to call out this behaviour when it happens,” she insisted, decrying “the stereotypes women face when they take on leadership positions.

    She said the headline debacle reflected the problems raised in a book she co-authored with former Australian prime minister Julie Gillard called “Women and Leadership.”

  • Two tales of the girl child – Francis Ewherido

    Two tales of the girl child – Francis Ewherido

    By Francis Ewherido

    Last week, Nigeria took the world stage for all the right reasons. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, one of Nigeria’s finest, former minister of finance, former minister of foreign, former managing director of the World Bank and a fellow Deltan (let me also associate, others have been doing so for almost two weeks now), was confirmed as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation.

    Her hitherto nemesis, Donald Trump, had been voted out in the US Presidential Election on November 3, 2020, and subsequently left office on January 20 this year. Okonjo-Iweala’s emergence is a triumph for the girl child and further emphasises the need to invest in the girl child to enable her realise her full potentials.

    While Okonjo-Iweala was making waves for the right reasons, another girl child, Promise Idorenyin, was trending for all the wrong reasons. She was caught by her school principal in school with a locally-made pistol. She allegedly went to school with the pistol after her teacher asked her to cut her tainted hair. That was not all. She confessed that she was a cultist, a member of the Sky Queens Confraternity.

    While Okonjo-Iweala was making waves for the right reasons, another girl child, Promise Idorenyin, was trending for all the wrong reasons.

    At 17, she is already sexually active and in fact was sexually active before 17. Of her boyfriend, Okon Effiong, 38, and father of six children from two women, she said: “My mother knows about him because he visits me at our house, and sometimes, he sleeps over at my place because I have my own room….”

    The married boyfriend corroborates, “I started sleeping with her August last year, her mother knows me, I have been doing small something on her head. They know she is my wife.” That is how people marry wives, abi? By “doing small something” on their heads, mumu. He is publicly confessing to sleeping with a minor. May the words of our mouth not bring us destruction.

    He went further, “I did not give her the gun; she took it herself where I kept it under the bed.” This is the bane of men: when a man gets an erection, his brain goes on recess. A full grown man shows a small girl, who should not be anywhere near a pistol, the deadly weapon and his lame excuse is that she took it herself. This lust-induced foolishness has ended careers, vocations, callings and lives abruptly; it is going to send this foolish man to jail if nothing else for illegal possession of firearms. That is just by the way. Our focus today is this girl child, a wayward girl child.

    Can this girl still become an Okonjo-Iweala (a successful girl child)? A resounding yes, but the circumstances must change. She needs a change of environment. A mother who consents to a man to ravage her under-aged daughter and steal her future under her roof cannot bring up a potential Okonjo-Iweala. Also, she must quit her cult group. I do not know how deadly this group is; some cult groups do go after members who leave the group. This is another reason why the needs a change of scene. Finally, she needs to be far away from her pedophile lover so that the sex abuse and exploitation can stop. He should be behind bars anyway if the law takes its course.

    The Promise needs rehabilitation. Who is going to help? NGOs, government agencies, private individuals, who? She needs a mother-figure, who can help to repair what has been destroyed and restore what has been stolen from her, or at least a part of it. She needs a mother-figure, who can be role model, teacher, mentor, adviser, disciplinarian and much more.

    I have not heard anything about her father since her story became public, but she can do with a father-figure also. There has been a monumental lack of leadership in her life. May be, that was why she resorted to cultism and a relationship with a much older man to fill the vacuum. She needs a father-figure to look up to, someone who enforces discipline and lives by example. He needs a man who will make her see the dignity of womanhood, not like her lover who sees her as a sex object. She needs a father-figure, who will protect her and provide for her, not a man who asks for sex in return. She needs a father-figure (and a mother), who will show her the way of the Lord.

    From a distance, you can see no one has played these roles in her life. Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala and other woman, who have succeeded did not achieve success by magic. At the initial stages of their lives, their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts or some other persons, made sacrifices for them; they guided them, whipped them into line when they strayed; they were taught and mentored; they gave them a firm foundation on which they built the next stages of their lives. The mother of Promise has no capacity to raise a successful girl child. How can a normal mother allow a father of six to be sleeping with her daughter? What if she gets pregnant? Has the man been able to care for his wife and six children? These are of no interest to this mother because the man gives her “small something.” Even more shocking is the man coming to spend the night in her house and having sex with the girl with the knowledge of the woman. I have been looking out for rebuttal by the woman, but none so far.

    If this was an isolated case, one would not be too bothered, but stories of lousy mothers abound. If you read stories of some of these girls, who were sexually abused by their biological fathers or other relatives, their mothers were aware. They preferred to rock their daughters’ futures rather than rock the family boat. Some of them just couldn’t be bothered. After all, it is a girl child that is involved, not their precious son(s). I have seen a lot and I continue to see. Women (mothers) are a major hindrance to the liberation of the girl child. Even as I write, I know homes where the girl child continues to be second class citizens.

    External institutions alone did not make Okonji-Iweala and her likes; it started from the home. The home is the foundation. But this girl will likely be sent to a reformatory home by the court. How reformatory are these homes? If they are like the correctional centres (formerly called prisons), your guess is as good as mine. I read about three cases of crime today (Wednesday) in the newspaper. All (armed robbery, kidnapping and homicide) were committed by ex-convicts.

    The situation brings to fore the need to make our reformatory homes reformatory enough. We cannot afford to allow them be like our correctional centres (prisons) because every minor, who goes in there deserves an opportunity and environment to realize her full potentials. It would have been nice if she is taken to a proper home with couples who have parenting skills, but this is not going to come easy. Promise Idorenyin does have a promising future, she needs help.

     

  • Trump’s Aberrations, Biden’s Normalization And Okonjo-Iweala’s Ascension, By Magnus Onyibe

    Trump’s Aberrations, Biden’s Normalization And Okonjo-Iweala’s Ascension, By Magnus Onyibe

    By magnus onyibe

    When my opinion piece titled “Coup In The Capitol Hill And The Divided States of America” which was focused on the insurrection by extremists who stormed the Capitol on 6 January this year was first published in the mass media on 11 January before being republished on LinkedIn platform a couple of weeks ago; a security expert in the USA was so riled by my reference to the country as Divided States of America , DSA that he literarily called me out.
    According to him, he was pissed off by my uncomplimentary tagging of the USA as DSA.
    He did not give a hoot about my explanation that the title was apt as the USA had become so divided as evidenced by the 81m people that voted for Joe Biden who won the presidency, versus the 74m that voted for Donald Trump, that got defeated in the 3November, 2020 presidential elections in the USA and refused to accept defeat.
    Tried as l did , he failed to be persuaded by my explanations that the pattern of the votes and behavior of the electorate suggested a huge division amongst Americans that bayed for Trump and those that kicked against him numbering up to 7 million more than those for him.
    I also strived to no avail to sway my traducer away from his impertinence into accepting that a consequential fall out of the deep rift amongst voters in the USA is what snowballed into the 6 January storming of the Capitol by the insurrectionists intent on disrupting the procedures by the legislators from the 50 states of the union who had assembled to certify Joe Biden’s win in the electoral college votes.
    My assailant was so peeved that instead of paying attention to my justification of the title, he questioned my locus standi for commenting on the seeming collapse of democracy in the country that prides herself as the bastion of liberal democracy and leader of the free world.
    In his view , what right do l have to poke fun or comment on the status of the democracy in the almighty USA, particularly when l’m a citizen of Nigeria that is yet to figure out what the practice of democracy as a system of government is about ,how much more practice it in purity.
    I ignored his asinine remark because l had concluded that the fellow who was trying to bully me must be a Trumpist.
    Since l felt he must be living in denial , my response to him was simple and presented in the following manner :
    The brutal and savage attack on legislators- senators and congressmen/women – by Trumpists and other political extremists during a joint session of Congress under the chairmanship of then Vice President Mike Pence in the process of certifying the electoral college votes from the 50 states affirming Joe R. Biden as the 46th president of the USA , was enough to demystify the world’s most powerful democracy. And it certainly did for me.
    I reminded him of how un-American the invasion of the Capitol, the symbol of USA democracy is, and what a blithe on the country’s democracy credentials , the savage action of trying to over turn Joe Biden’s victory represents to lovers of democracy or its adherents like me world wide. I drew his attention to the fact that some democracy devotees like my good self that had become champions of democratic system of governance in my country of which the USA was the poster child or mascot, are still trying to pull ourselves out of the trauma and depression of seeing the Capitol, which had never been attacked until the British set the legislative seat of power on fire on 24 August , 1814 when it invaded the USA during the country’s struggle for independence . I then proceeded to bring to his notice , how bewildered and crest fallen l was seeing the physical siege and desecration of the symbol of democracy by the extremists on the fateful 6 January, 2020.
    That’s in addition to the fact that it was so absurd to me that then president of the USA, mr Trump was caught on tape trying to compel an official in charge of elections in one of the states to arbitrarily award him votes that he did not earn.
    l then added that the shenanigans were really so appalling and jarring to me that a seating president would invite state government officials to the White House where he would attempt to bully them into skewing electoral votes in their respective states in his favor.
    Finally , l informed my interrogator that given that we practice presidential system of government in Nigeria , the bad example set on 6 January in the USA was bound to rub off negatively on politics in my country , hence l expressed my displeasure via the article that was deemed offensive to him.
    I have no idea if he was assuaged or persuaded by my submission, but l’m convinced that the points that l made were enough for him to ponder and perhaps aid him in getting off his high horses.
    On a personal note, the very critical reasons for writing the piece is that l was anxious to see the back of Donald Trump from the White House as the 45th president of the USA , principally because his administration, amongst other local and international perfidies and arbitrariness , was blocking the appointment of our own amazon -Ngozi Okonjo-lweala as the next president of the World Trade Organization,WTO.
    Here is how Okonjo-Iweala described in a recent media interview, her ordeal in the hands of Trump when she was vying to be the Director General of the WTO :
    “I think I was quite surprised when that came (opposition from Trump) because there was no indication that there was any problem with the US.
    “I had two good interviews with the authorities and with the administration so it was a surprise. But that’s the way life works. When things happen, you take them in your stride and you move on.
    “It was absolutely wonderful when the Biden/Harris administration broke that logjam. They joined the consensus and gave such a strong endorsement to my candidacy. They joined the other 163 members to endorse my candidacy.”
    Unlike Okonjo-lweala, l’m not surprised that Trump opposed her candidacy and my pessimistic prognosis is derived from the fact that the same Trump had also referred to Nigeria as a ‘ shit hole’ country , affirming his racist tendencies, inclinations and attitude towards members of black and brown communities and even extending to Africans on the continent.
    By also trying to literarily kill the dream of kids born in the USA also known as DACA (a lot of them Nigerians) via a policy of preventing them from getting a secure pathway to becoming citizens if their parents were not bonafide American citizens,Trump revealed that he lacked empathy or exposed his meanness.
    Now ,contrary to former president Trump’s abrasive leadership style, president Biden has amongst a slew or deluge of reversals of Trump’s obnoxious policies, resuscitated DACA that was introduced via executive order under the watch of the 44th president of the USA , Barack Obama whom he served with as Vice President . The policy which espouses 8 years time lag to get to citizenship by immigrants is poised to be one of president Biden’s biggest hurdles to scale , perhaps second in importance to the Affordable Care Act(ACA)otherwise known as Obamacare that was under threat of cancellation by Trump, but also currently receiving parliamentary attention .
    It is amazing how the 46th president, Biden is such a contrast to the 45th , Trump.
    While Biden is an empathetic and liberal leader with a mission to unite white and black as well as blue and red Americans, even as he seeks to reignite America’s sparkle as a force for good all over the world, Trump was a champion of white supremacy to the extent that he did not only divide Americans, but ostracized people from major parts of the world as he tangoed or faced- off with China , lran , North Korea and even some countries in Europe-a continent with a preponderance of countries that are joined in the hips with America.
    Under president Biden’s leadership , the USA has just donated a whopping $4b to COVAX- a World Health Organization , WHO co-ordinated fund for sourcing COVID-19 vaccines in support of people in under resourced countries worldwide.
    Compare and contrast such Biden’s public spiritedness with Trump’s -the man who as the president of the USA,the wealthiest country in the world-only donated ventilators that were no longer needed in the USA to African countries including Nigeria. Perhaps the gesture by mr Trump is a demonstration or in furtherance of his reckoning that only crumps are good enough for Africans that he disdainfully referred to as people from ‘shit hole’ countries.
    His racist tendencies were not restricted to just blacks in America, but he was projecting it far beyond. With his America First mantra , ex president Trump espoused and promoted the insularity of the USA by projecting to the vulnerable members of the global society that the USA is no longer ‘their brothers keepers’ , yet he wanted to have influential control over Africa Development Bank, ADB, the World Health Organization, WHO, the World Trade Organization,WTO and other Breton wood institutions.
    How do l know that ?
    Under president Trump’s watch , the USA had tried very hard to torpedo Akinwunmi Adesina’s bid for re-election as African Development Bank, ADB president. The ADB president was accused of financial malfeasance by a USA representative on the board of the bank. But after several internal probes and a repeated probe by an independent panel absolved him of any malpractice, the USA had no choice but to capitulate by accepting Akinwunmi Adewunmi’s re-election .
    By the same token , the WHO, Director General, Tedros Adhanom Gbebreyesus was clobbered by Trump over his alleged mismanagement of covid-19 pandemic, and allegedly for pandering to the Chinese , according to Trump’s reckoning.
    His only escape from Trump’s racist cudgel is because the Make America Great Again, (MAGA)exponent lost his re-election bid to mr Biden who has now offered the Ethiopia born DG of WHO, a new lease of life by returning the USA to the global health organization as a major donor .
    Characteristically, Trump and his administration’s streak for literarily sticking dagger into the heart of Africans became manifest once again when he constituted a stumbling block on the path of our own amazon , Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as she was vying for the role of Director General for WTO.
    Even after 163 countries had endorsed the Harvard and MIT-ivy league institutions-educated development economist for the job, the USA under Trump’s presidency remained a lone dissenter and a clog in the wheel of progress as he threw his weight and that of the USA behind South Korea’s trade minister , Yoo Myung-hee.
    Obviously, America’s public policy under former president Trump had become stuck like a bull trying to walk on quicksand that it needed to be rescued by a regime with a more robust and accommodating world view.
    Fortuitously ,it is not only the WTO logjam that has been eased up, the Biden/Harris administration has for all its intents and purposes practically started untangling the administrative nooses
    that the immediate past president Trump’s administration tied the system down with in pursuit of his America First and Make America Great Again, (MAGA) mantra.
    As an administration on a rescue mission, team Biden/Harris now looks like a lawn mower in a garden that had been left unattended to by an irresponsible and perhaps reckless homeowner/tenant or at best a snowmobile clearing up the pathways after a snowstorm in the manner that the blizzard that recently hit the USA is being cleared up , particularly in the fossil fuel rich state of Texas.
    Without a shred of doubt, the reputation of the USA as the epitome of democracy sunk , as my faith in the unequalled, unparalleled , indisputable and towering position of the that country as the face of democracy in this century symbolized by the Statue of Liberty whose imposing presence in New York habor beckons visitors to the great, USA, the land of the free and where all humans can be what they can be irrespective of their color or creed , was questioned by that 6 January invasion of the Capitol by those that l have, perhaps mockingly described as coup plotters.
    Incidentally, l’m not alone in tagging the USA as the Divided States of America, DSA after the abhorrent behavior put up by right wing politicians and extremists who are essentially Trump supporters.
    Fareed Zakaria, a CNN anchor for the talk show Fared Zakaria GPS had shortly after my article also titled his special report on the 6 January breakdown of law and order in the Capitol as “The Divided States of America- What’s Tearing Us Apart” a documentary which was broadcast on CNN , 29 January.
    Following that obnoxious act that resulted in a major loss of face for the USA , it is commendable that the new Biden administration has clearly pressed a reset button that would put the almighty USA back to the top of the pecking order in the global committee of nations by acting like an adult that it is, before Trump’s maladministration made the country look like a banana republic following the coup on the Capitol Hill on the fateful 6 January show of infamy.
    The G-7 meeting held virtually by the leaders of the 7 most powerful and prosperous nations on planet earth hosted in Munich , Germany last week offered president Biden the platform to announce the re-engagement of the USA with her allies that ex president Trump had alienated. He did so by signaling the rejoining global initiatives such as climate change and the multiple nations lran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) from which mr Trump had decoupled the USA.
    As an elated president Biden declared to his audience during the G-7 virtual meeting “America is back, the trans-Atlantic alliance is back,”
    For sure, everybody loves to win,but some winners can’t even boast about their success or gloat about their victory because it may be pyrrhic. While that’s not the lot or burden of president Joe R Biden, former president Donald J Trump, the 45th president of the USA falls into the category of winners who can’t boast or gloat. Simply because his victory in the senate that failed to convict him after the House of Representatives had impeached him for inciting the insurrection in the Capitol on 6 January, can’t be celebrated .
    Thats despite the fact that he has actually won four times since 2016 when he made his first foray into the arena of politics and winning the presidency of the USA. The lack of desire or spunk by his fellow party members in the upper legislative chamber to convict him in the senate after the House of Representatives had impeached him for inciting insurrection in the Capitol reflects how partisan politicians , even in the USA can be.
    Before now, mr Trump had also won in the senate when the upper legislative chamber failed to also get him convicted and removed from office after he was first impeached by the House of Representatives in December of 2019 for his role in soliciting the help of Ukraine- a foreign country to investigate his opponent , Joe Biden which is an aberration of the constitution of the country .
    Prior to the two aforementioned victories in the senate , ex president Trump had also in 2016 won the highly contested Republican Party primaries for the presidency, after which he went on to win the presidency following his defeat of Hillary Clinton , former First Lady of the USA, one time senator representing the state of New York and later US Secretary of State .
    So, in a rather uncanny and grotesque manner, mr Trump has been four times a winner in American politics.
    Before each of the four wins, nobody gave candidate Trump a chance because he was a political neophyte at that time .
    But having defied all the odds , he has become such an enigma, if not a cult figure in American politics. Although there is a legion of single term presidents such as Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush in modern American history , at least no other president in USA history had been impeached twice, except mr Trump. So he takes the cake in that respect.
    Oddly enough, despite being defeated as president and the GOP losing control of both the House of Representatives and senate under his watch , former president Trump is still held in awe by the party members to the extent that the party of the venerable Abraham Lincoln is now being tagged Trump’s party.
    The 45th president is such a study in contrast.
    A leadership icon to his faithfuls- 74 million Americans who voted for him on 3 November 2020 that are also the insurrectionists that stormed the parliament to steal the victory for him when the electoral college votes from all the 50 states were being certified by all the law makers in the entire United States of America in favor of former Vice President Biden .
    Conversely , mr Trump is also a villain to the 82 million Americans that voted for mr Biden and they are those that Trump wanted to undermine by calling for the cancellation of their votes so that he could be awarded victory and returned to office . Certainly, from the foregoing , mr Trump represents different strokes for different folks.
    But Trump does not bow to defeat, neither is he phased by it . That’s why he still has the confidence to excoriate his former ally, Mitch McConnell, former senate majority leader , currently minority leader that voted against Trump’s conviction during the senate impeachment trial. In what appears to be a dubious act, McConnell also blamed the former president for instigating the storming of the Capitol Hill by the angry mob on that fateful 6 January, that resulted in fatalities for 5 persons including a police officer.
    Which is curious because the senate minority leader seem to be blowing hot and cold same time.
    Although mr Trump was able to inspire fear in most of the GOP senators enough to successfully escape being convicted by the upper chambers of the legislature twice , he is likely to buckle under the weight of the looming monumental law suits that are currently staring him in the face , since his immunity from prosecution has been lost following his ouster from the White House since January, this year. The judiciary has already proven to be an uneasy nut to crack when all the 163 suits that Trump filled against the 2020 presidential elections failed to yield his desired outcome .
    Pre Trump’s presidency , (2016-2021) the USA and its practice of liberal democracy was awe inspiring to me. Especially after the first black man, Barack Obama was elected the 44th president.
    That was an unprecedented feat given that blacks constitute only roughly 14% of the population of the USA. Obama’s rise to the presidency was even made more poignant by the fact that barely a century ago, blacks that dwelt in the White House were only mere slaves who lived in the underground residences provided for White House servants. Amazingly , a black Woman , madam Vice President, Kamala Harris is now another co-occupant of the White House barely four years after Obama’s departure. To me those positive developments are the unique and beautiful attributes of democracy in the USA.
    However, arising from the hack man’s job that ex president Trump did by working up his supporters emotionally to storm the Capitol , he burst my bubble about the inviolability and invincibility of the democratic institutions in the USA which l had reckoned as being very sturdy and tamper proof.
    But given the dizzying rate at which things have rapidly changed globally in the past one year, l’ve learnt never to take anything off the table or take anything fore granted.
    Remarkably, while Trump was on his way out of the White House on January 20th, he had boasted , “l will be back.“
    The question now, is would he?
    The midterm elections coming up next year, 2022 in which he has promised to get involved, with a view to influencing positive outcomes for his allies would be a useful barometer.
    That the GOP leaders allowed him to continue to lead the party whose fortunes he had squandered, speaks volumes about the vice grip that a man that was considered to be a political novice has on the Republican Party.
    To be fair , were it not for Trump’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic that has sent nearly half a million Americans to their untimely graves , the USA economy was bubbling with employment rate soaring. With those critical barometers of prosperity on the right trajectory, mr Trump was pretty confident that he would be re-elected.
    But alas, he got defeated by former Vice President Biden with about 7 million more popular votes-81/74 and more electoral college votes of 273 for Biden and 214 for him.
    Recall that in 2016 Hillary Clinton had beaten Trump with 3 million popular votes, but Trump clinched the presidency by polling more electoral college votes than Mrs Clinton-304/227.
    So , in America and in fact , in life , it’s advisable to always be prepared as anything can happen.
    For instance , nobody knew some three decades ago that China would be the economic powerhouse of the world barely 15 years after it joined the World Trade Organization, WTO. But China had cleverly shut itself out from the rest of the world and tarried until it had developed capacity to compete positively before she joined the WTO and opened her market to the rest of the world and also gained access to the global market .
    In fact , in December 2019, nobody, (perhaps except mr Bill Gates who predicted it 5 years earlier) reckoned that there would be an outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in December of 2019 spreading from Wuhan, China.
    Worse of all, no one expected that one year after the invasion of mankind by coronavirus, nearly half a million people would die in the USA-the most powerful and richest country in the world due to mismanagement of COVID-19 pandemic by former president Trump .
    Nobody by this time last year also knew that cryptocurrency or Bitcoin would be a major payment currency in the world threatening the preeminent position of traditional currencies.
    Also by this time last year , president Biden had the ambition, but wasn’t certain he would be the next president of the USA as his contest for the job in the primaries was floundering.
    Ditto for Madam Vice President, Kamala Harris whose campaign during the primaries was not well resourced so it couldn’t reach the threshold of remaining in the contest , and had to discontinue.
    So her hope of being in the White House in 2021 had gone with the wind . As such she did not believe that she would be the first female and African/Asian American to be the Vice President of the USA.
    But five years ago , Hillary Clinton thought that her pathway to being the first female president of the USA and the first , First Lady to be madam president of the USA was a fait accompli . But fate dealt her a cruel blow as her ambition to be the first woman president of the USA which was looking like a done deal, ended like a puff of smoke or a pack of collapsing cards with the trophy going to the unlikely winner , then candidate Trump.
    I can bet that about a year ago , the 45th President of the USA , Donald J Trump also never had any premonition that he would not be living in the White House beyond 20 January . But would be living permanently in his Mar-a Lago resort in Florida , where he may be forced to vacate soon as he might currently be in breach of the agreement with the city council which does not allow him to dwell in the resort as a permanent resident for over a certain period of time consistently. In fact ex president Trump, at least was not planning to exit the White House until after his second term hence he attempted to dig in his heels. And that’s evidenced by his antics to self perpetuate spanning several demands for recount of votes in several states , filling of 163 law suits aimed at claiming victory , his futile attempt to invoke the marshal laws , a gambit of which he got rebuffed by the military before finally stirring up his supporters to storm the Capitol with a view to killing law makers and hanging Vice President Mike Pence who was in the Capitol with his family.
    I can go on and on being philosophical and waxing lyrical about what could be, what can’t and what has been.
    As the saying goes , man proposes, God disposes.
    With former president Trump’s isolationist policies in the four years that he spent in the White House , president Biden’s job has been cut out for him.
    Fittingly, the G-7 virtual meeting last Tuesday offered the 46th president of the USA an opportunity to announce that America is back to lead the world which is in stark contrast with Trump’s America first mantra that alienated the USA from its traditional allies and deepened the void between America and her traditional enemies.
    With respect to the ascendancy of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to the top of the hierarchy as the DG of WTO, I admire her courage because it has been a long struggle.
    It may be recalled that in 2019 she had set out to become the world bank group president. But she failed to clinch it when she lost it to David Malpas , an American because the super powers or security council members of the UN have allocated the leadership of the Breton wood institutions (lMF, World bank , WTO) to themselves. World bank always goes to the USA , currently under the leadership of mr Malpas. The lMF goes to the Europeans-now headed by a French woman , Christiane Largarde , and the WTO is allocated to the medium powers, hence the last occupant is a Brazilian and little wonder Trump was hell bent to hand the trophy over to the South Korean candidate Yoo Myung-hee that had no option than to step down after mr Trump, her backer lost his re-election bid and it became manifest that president Biden’s administration has no appetite for arbitrariness ,but big on meritocracy.
    President Biden’s appointment into his government of a coterie of Nigerian-Americans into critical posts in his administration affirms his confidence in the ability and capacity of Nigerians to perform their assigned roles creditably .
    In pursuit of their neocolonialist agenda, apparently, the G-7 or sometimes G-10 club of the most powerful countries in the world, might have concluded that Africa and the bottom of the rung countries in Europe and Asia could only aspire to have one of their own serve as United Nations Secretary General-think of Boutrous Ghali, from Egypt , Kofi Annan of Ghana, Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea and current Secretary General , Anthonio Gutteres from Portugal.
    But apparently,Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ‘s ambition does not recognize barriers or glass ceilings.
    So she persisted as a positive non conformist until she broke the WTO glass ceiling. In other words , she gave ‘good trouble’ as the late civil rights icon and congressman , John Lewis likes to describe unrelenting and sacrificial trouble or struggle for a good cause, until she attained her goal.
    Characteristically a lot of women , fellow Africans , Nigerians and even Deltans have been celebrating Okonjo-Iweala’s rare accomplishment.
    As the saying goes , nothing succeeds like success.
    It is doubtless that most of Okonjo-lweala’s cheer leaders are doing so for the altruistic reasons that she has broken the glass ceiling and by so doing she has paved the way for more Africans to aspire to lead any global organizations -including the World bank and IMF as opposed to being restricted to the role of a mere figure heads or ceremonial heads of the United Nations, UN.
    But a good number of us are also doing so with a view to soliciting help such as contracts from the new WTO ,DG which typically is the quest of most average Nigerians and indeed Africans.
    Well , to the later category of people , perhaps they need to be reminded that the contracting system in supranational entities such as WTO are very well scrutinized and curated to a reasonable degree. So more often than not contracts are only awarded on the basis of merit.
    Besides being a global public servant (having served as the managing director of an arm of the world bank group) Okonjo-lweala has manifestly not exhibited the tendency to pander to the whims and caprices of her ‘people’.
    l know that because when she was minister of finance under president Olusegun Obasanjo and later minister of the economy under President Goodluck Jonathan for a total period of about 7 years, no infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads or electricity power plants or transformers were influenced by her for location in Ogwashi-Uku her homestead or even Delta state in general.
    Typically , as the finance minister ,fellow cabinet members would lobby her before presenting their proposals in cabinet meetings by offering to cite or locate some infrastructure in her place of choice so that their proposals would sail through and receive funding at the executive council meeting.
    But it appears like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala acceded to none of such entreaties and thus effectively denied her kinsmen the dividends of democracy or perks that come with such high profile jobs.
    My hunch is that her tour of duty as the Director General of the World Trade Organization, WTO won’t be any different.
    A worse case scenario would be that she could help unshackle the burden of unfair trade which is currently the yoke around the neck and load upon the back of Africans placed by the industrialized world in furtherance of the obnoxious slave trade , which got stepped down to colonialism and finally neocolonialism which was imposed on the people of the continent of Africa over four hundred years ago.
    If she could make the case that Africa needs Trade not Aid by promoting south – south trade which implies trade between and amongst African countries and other developing countries without passing through the economies of their former colonial masters and the industrialized world in Europe , she would have hit a home run, as baseball players do, or scored a birdie as golfers characterize exceptional achievements in the respective games.
    Although I have no idea or evidence to determine if Ngozi Okonjo-lweala has been feathering her nest in anyway or manner, but one thing that’s for sure is that she would ruffle feathers in her new role as DG of WTO if that’s what it would take to accomplish her noble mission.
    After all, it is not for nothing that she was nicknamed Okonjo Wahalla during her tour of duty as a cabinet minister in Nigeria.
    ONYIBE, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst ,author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from lagos.
    To continue with this conversation, pls visit www.magnum.ng

  • I was surprised Trump was against my bid for WTO Job – Okonjo-Iweala

    Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, says she was surprised that the administration of President Donald Trump could stand in her way of leading the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

    At a press briefing monitored on Monday, the new Director-General of WTO said she did not see it coming.

    She said she felt she had a good understanding with the US government which interviewed her about the job twice.

    “I think I was quite surprised when that came (opposition from Trump) because there was no indication that there was any problem with the US.

    “I had two good interviews with the authorities and with the administration so it was a surprise. But that’s the way life works. When things happen, you take them in your stride and you move on.

    “It was absolutely wonderful when the Biden/Harris administration broke that logjam. They joined the consensus and gave such a strong endorsement to my candidacy. They joined the other 163 members to endorse my candidacy,” she said.

    The United States government had last week announced its endorsement of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala for the top job.

    It became clear earlier on Friday that Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank executive, would clinch the coveted post after her final challenger, South Korean Trade Minister and candidate, Yoo Myung-hee, announced her withdrawal.

    Although 163 member countries had elected Okonjo-Iweala in October, the US under Trump was critical of WTO’s handling of global trade, saying South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee could reform the body.

    The four-month selection process for the next WTO director-general hit a road block when Washington said it would continue to back South Korea’s trade minister.

    The US had said WTO “must be led by someone with real, hands-on experience in the field”.

    “Ms Yoo has distinguished herself as a trade expert and has all the skills necessary to be an effective leader of the organisation.

    “This is a very difficult time for the WTO and international trade. There have been no multilateral tariff negotiations in 25 years, the dispute settlement system has gotten out of control, and too few members fulfill basic transparency obligations. The WTO is badly in need of major reform,” said the office of US Trade Representative, which advises Trump.