I’m of the opinion that the Hon. Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Lawan Ngama should be the natural replacement of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as the Minister of Finance, if the current Minister gets the job of World Bank President.

Dr. Yerima Lawan Ngama


Dr. Yerima Lawan Ngama, was born in Gashua, Yobe State, on 31st January, 1961. He attended Central Primary School Gashua, Yobe State from 1967 to 1973 and proceeded to Government Secondary School Gashua, (1973 to 1978 ) where he obtained the West African School Certificate.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree (Upper Division) in Accountancy from the University of Maiduguri in 1983, he pursued and obtained a Master of Accountancy Degree (with specialty in International Accounting and Financial Management) in 1986 from the prestigious University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.

In addition, he obtained both Master of Social Science Degree and the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Money, Banking and Finance from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He did his mandatory National Youth Service Corps Programme (1983-1984 in G.G.C.S.S. Isunjaba, Imo State. He even speaks Ibo fluently.

Dr. Ngama has published and presented over thirty research works. Some of his prominent works include the following:

• An Empirical Examination of Absolute Purchasing Power Parity: Spain 19971988. (With Simon Sosvilla-Rivero). Published in Revista Espnola de Economia. (Spanish Economic Review) Vol.8, No. 2. 1991.

• Does the Forward Premium/Discount Help Predict the Future Change in Exchange Rate? (WEith C.A.E. Goodhart and P.C McMahon). Published in The Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol.39, No. 2. May 1992.

• Testing the Efficiency of Thin Forward Foreign Exchange Markets: An application of instrumental variable multiple-regression with integrated 1(1) variable. Published in The Manchester School, Vol. LX, B No. 2 June 1992.

• Testing for Unit Roots with Very High Frequency Spot Foreign Exchange Data. (With Charles A.E. Goodhart and P.C. McMahon). Published in The Journal of Macroeconomics. Vol. 15, No. 3, Summer 1993.

• Testing for the presence of Time-Varying Risk Premium Using a Mean-Conditional-Variance Optimization Model. Published in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. Vol. 56, No. 2, May, 1994.

• A re-examination of the Forward Exchange Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis. Published in Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv. (Review of World Economics) band 130, Heft 3, December 1994.

• Forward Exchange Rates and Expectations during the 1920s: A Re-examination of the evidence. (With J.W. McFarland and P.C. McMahon). Published in the Journal of International Money and Finance, 1994 Vol. 13 No. 6.

• All About Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation. Published in The Nigerian Banker, (Published by the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Lagos), January-June 1995.

• Why Does the Sport-Forward Discount fail to Predict Changes in Future Spot Rate? (With C.A.E. Goodhard and P.C. McMahon). (Published in International Journal of Finance and Economics Vol. 2 (2) 1997, P. 121 – 130. Reproduced in The Foreign Exchange Market: Theory and Econometric Evidence. Edited by Charles A. E. Goodhart. LSE, London.

• In addition to his work as a professional banker and teacher, Dr. Ngama has served as member of several Boards, Panels and Committees to advise on major polices and strategies.

it is not possible because the central bank governor is a northerner, sanusi is from the north. check nigeria constitution.

Good laugh.