USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | Mailafia: Ngozi and the path of destiny (2)

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Subject: NigerianID | Mailafia: Ngozi and the path of destiny (2)
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Mailafia: Ngozi and the path of destiny (2)

WEDNESDAY, 28 MARCH 2012 00:00 BY OBADIAH MAILAFIA OPINION -COLUMNISTS

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Continued from yesterday

BUT let us reason together. In the year 2000 or thereabouts, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took leave of absence at the World Bank to set up Nigeria's first debt management programme which metamorphosed into the Debt Management Office (DMO) as we know it today. As finance minister during 2003-2006, she presided over the unprecedented macroeconomic reforms that unleashed a period of growth and prosperity in our country. She also spearheaded the negotiation of our debt settlement with the Paris Club which makes us one of the least-indebted countries in the world today. Some have criticised a decision that involved the transfer of a whopping US$13 billion to a bunch of rich nations. I believe those criticisms are misplaced. By the time she was leaving office in 2006, our foreign reserves had peaked at an astonishing US$59 billion. She has been a stickler for financial probity. It was largely thanks to her that Nigeria, a pariah country, was gradually winning back its place of honour in the ranks of civilised nations.

Ngozi's second coming as a double-whammy Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy has regrettably drawn the ire – if not jealousy – of not a few of her ministerial colleagues. Her role as de facto Prime Minister does not exist in our constitution. This has undermined the coherence and trust that ought to exist in the heart of the government. The gridlock that characterises the government may be partly explained by this fact. If a cabinet cannot think as one and act as one and speak as one, then such a government cannot hope to deliver on its mandate.

The word 'clueless' has been used to describe a government that seems lost in the woods, thanks to Boko Haram, the absence of real political leadership and a profound lack of moral direction. Never since the years preceding the civil war has our country faced such a gathering gloom of bad omens. Ngozi of course is no political philosopher, and it would be a tall order to expect her to come up with magic solutions to address these intractable problems.

In a conversation with a friend and colleague from Botswana recently, I was touched when she remarked that "Ngozi is predestined for the job".  I have never subscribed to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, but it seems clear to me that if there was ever a person whose life and career seemed programmed for the headship of the World Bank, that person is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Nobody rivals her in terms of insider knowledge of the institution: she rose steadily by dint of merit from Young Professional to Chief, Manager, Director, Vice-President and Managing Director. She has been in operations as well as in policy management. She is a two-time finance minister as well as a foreign affairs minister of her country. She understands not only the arcana of public policy but also the murky waters of international politics.

In addition, she has been on the board of several international bodies, among them Global FinancialIntegrity and the World Resources Institute. She has been a Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution and is on first name terms with world figures from Bill Gates to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Mo Ibrahim. The laurels have come in dollops: Financial Times Finance Minister/Banker of the Year 2005; Euromoney Finance Minister of the Year 2005; and a cache of doctoral degrees honoris causa from Brown University, Trinity College Dublin, Colby College, Northern Caribbean University and Amherst College.

Apart from this dizzying profile, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a woman without blemish – without any scandal to her name. Behind that small frame is a bundle of extraordinarily focused energy and laser-precise intellect; at home in her skin as a dignified African woman. She will be a safe pair of hands.

It goes without saying that her chances will depend on President Obama and the willingness of Washington to cease its monopoly of the World Bank Presidency, a concession that was made at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 more as a matter of convention than the exigencies of statute. After Paul Wolfowitz – a man I met and liked – left in a cloud in 2007, the Americans had agreed in principle that the position should henceforth be based on merit rather than as their exclusive national prerogative. In a recent article, three former World Bank chief economists – Joseph Stiglitz, François Bourguignon and Nicholas Stern – have urged Washington to honour its undertaking to cease its monopoly on the running of the World Bank: "To say it is merit-based, and to choose an American repeatedly, shows scant respect to the citizens of other countries of the world."

The world has changed from the years of upheaval in 1944, when America accounted for 49% of global output. Today, the US GDP is 21 per cent of the world economy. The U.S. controls 16.3 per cent of the voting powers within the Board of the World Bank. This contrasts with the mere 5.86 per cent that has been grudgingly conceded to all the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, comprising nearly a billion people. In spite of the Istanbul Declaration of 2009 to enhance the voting share and voice of the developing countries, African countries have been losing rather than gaining on both counts. This is a pernicious situation that needs to be urgently redressed. The ascension of Okonjo-Iweala to the Presidency would be a much-needed gesture of goodwill that will send the right signals to the international development community that the world powers are ready and willing to share the responsibility for global governance and leadership.

If the White House insists on its traditional monopoly, all it would need is a nod from the EU and Japan and then the matter is settled. Washington may also point to the fact that the French had their way by getting Christine Lagarde to occupy the position that was unceremoniously vacated by former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, another French national.

The Western powers need to realise that we face a completely different global environment in which the centre of gravity in international economic relations is no longer anchored on Washington, London or indeed Paris, Berlin and Brussels. The emerging economic powers have to be accorded their due place in the institutions of global governance. China, with over US$2 trillion external reserves, is capable of establishing a development finance institution to rival the World Bank.  Although Africa remains the poorest continent in the world, it is also the region with the greatest potential to provide the new growth pole for the world economy. Conceding the World Bank Presidency to an African will be a big boost to our continent and will confer much-needed legitimacy to the Washington institutions which in the past have behaved with such unbelievable arrogance.

Lest we forget, Kofi Annan of Ghana was one of the most successful Secretaries General that the UN has ever had. He has proven that Africans are able to rise to the occasion if they are appointed to positions of world leadership.

Nigeria has always behaved with the decorum expected of her as a responsible member of the world community of nations. The country peacefully conceded the disputed Bakassi territory to Cameroon even when it could have insisted on a plebiscite and even when it was clear that the judgement was flawed and the French judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was patently biased against our country. Nigeria has been a pillar of international peacekeeping in the Congo, Lebanon and Darfur, in addition to Sierra Leone and Liberia, where over 5,000 of its soldiers perished, the first casualty in Liberia being a young man from my own ancestral village of Randa, in Sanga, Kaduna State. Since the 1970s, Nigeria has spent US$70 billion from its petroleum resources in support of its African sister nations while its Technical Aid Corps, consisting of teachers, doctors, nurses and engineers have been in countries as far-flung as St. Lucia, Surinam and Tonga. Nigeria has never invaded another African country and has never directly or indirectly tried to undermine its neighbours. Nigeria underwrites the bulk of the budget of ECOWAS, and, together with Algeria, South Africa and Libya, accounts for 75 per cent of the operating budget of the African Union. While Nigeria has paid her dues as a responsible member of the world community, we do not believe we have been accorded our rightful recognition in terms of positions of leadership in international institutions. This egregious anomaly must be redressed.

It is in this spirit that we make the case for the Nigerian and African candidate. I believe that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was born to be President of the World Bank. But we cannot for that reason rest on our oars. President Goodluck Jonathan and Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru have a lot of ground to cover to get the world to see our own side of the story. It is gratifying that South Africa has put aside its tantrums and is supporting us, in addition to the AU, China and India. However, we must do our homework if we are to win over Europe, Japan, Latin America and the Arabs, and also, I would hope, the Americans.  In spite of the heartbreaking atrocities of Boko Haram and their accursed sponsors, it is moments like this that give me hope that our country will rise again. We will have to set off at dawn, if I may echo Wole Soyinka.

•Concluded

• Dr. Mailafia is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Economic Adviser to the President. He is the Chief of Staff to the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States in Brussels, Belgium.

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