There’s a good a case for Africa’s Okonjo-Iweala to be appointed head of WTO this time around. In its 25-year history, no African has ever headed the WTO. Yet, “Africa represents a key bloc within the WTO.

If the current controversy surrounding the search for a replacement for the outgoing director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Brazilian Roberto de Azevedo, were not global and intense, it would mean that the position was worth little more than a sinecure.

Appointed in 2013, Mr. de Azevedo has served notice that he will step down this August, a year before his term concludes.

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Up came eight candidates from all regions of the world, three of which are Africans: Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the former Kenyan foreign minister Amina Mohamed, who previously was the chairperson of the WTO General Council; and Abdel-Hamid Mamdouhm, an Egyptian lawyer who also had a stint as a senior WTO official. Because the headship of the WTO is not geographically rotational, no region of the world can claim it is its turn to produce the organisation’s next D-G.

However, there’s a good a case for an African to be appointed this time around. In its 25-year history, no African has ever headed the WTO. Yet, “Africa represents a key bloc within the WTO. It accounts for nearly 27 percent of membership and 35 percent of members from developing countries,” argue Professors Mzukisi Qobo and Mills Soko of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

In an article entitled Why one of three African candidates fits the bill as the new head of the WTO, Soko, a Professor of International Business & Strategy at Wits Business School, and Qobo, the Head of Wits School of Governance, strike a mighty blow for Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy: “In our view, of the three African contenders, none is better qualified than Okonjo-Iweala to lead the WTO in the next phase of its 25-year history, which is poised to be the most fractious and challenging.

“The WTO plays an important confidence-building role in the global economy, and the interests of poor countries will be best served in a stronger multilateral trading system that is responsive to their development concerns.

“The nature of the institution requires a leader with significant political heft and who commands the respect of all member countries, rich and poor…

“Okonjo-Iweala is suitably qualified to serve at the helm of the institution. She is a Harvard-educated political heavy-hitter with the skills and experience to cajole, knock heads together and break logjams. She is regarded as a consensus builder who enjoys the confidence of governments, business and multilateral institutions. As Nigeria’s finance minister, she successfully spearheaded the negotiation of an $18 billion debt write-off for the county with the Paris Club creditor nations.

“Her political acumen and extensive negotiating skills could contribute towards restoring the multilateral trade agenda. This has collapsed amid the Trump administration’s hostility towards multilateralism.

“With her origins from a neutral developing country, she could be the right candidate the embattled WTO needs to broker truce between the US and China and end their trade conflict, which has led to institutional collapse.

“Okonjo-Iweala also boasts a credible tract record of economic reform and political sway. Following a long stint as a senior executive at the World Bank, she twice served as Nigeria’s finance minister between 2003 and 2015. During this period, she took on vested interests and implemented far-reaching reforms. These included overhauling a corrupt fuel-subsidy scheme, cutting delays at the country’s ports, creating an oil fund to stabilise the economy, increasing transparency by publishing the government’s monthly finances, and introducing an electronic tax system that curbed illegal diversion of funds…

“Her global finance expertise, in particular, would serve the WTO well given the nexus between trade and finance in the world economy, accentuated by the current economic crisis. By not being a WTO insider, she would bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the institution.”

It is apposite to state that much of Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s assessment across the globe accords with the views of Soko and Qobo. Strikingly, Mr. Patrick Lumumba, the well-known Kenyan lawyer and former managing director of the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission, whose country has a candidate for the WTO job, has singled out Okonjo-Iweala as the most qualified to clinch it.

Again, Forbes, the global media company focusing on business, technology and entrepreneurship, is already quoting with approval Okonjo-Iweala’s view on a way to end the US and China trade conflict that Soko and Qobo mentioned. She has said that “demonstrable effort” by the WTO to address China’s industrial subsidies could prompt the US into a more favourable look at the organisation. It is thought in informed circles that the WTO’s future is tied to US-China relations.

Inside Nigeria, however, there is a twist. An Okonjo-Iweala spokesman has alleged that “powerful and well-connected forces” are sabotaging her chances by peddling lies and linking her with a secessionist tendency. In an article entitled Who Is Afraid of Okonjo-Iweala, Reuben Abati described the saboteurs as “sado-masochists” propelled by impulses that include sadism, the endless search for people to pull down, mental instability, the “Luciferian complex, mischief, ethnic, or religious reasons or plain wickedness.”

Characters of Dr. Abati’s categorisation invariably operate by stealth, a point that places them beneath contempt and wholly deserving of disregard and/or excoriation. However, there is a strident Nigerian voice openly opposed to Okonjo-Iweala landing the WTO job. He is Owei Lakemfa, a known journalist and trade unionist, who has written two articles in quick succession to sell his market, and thereby place himself squarely at an antipodal position with the national predilection on the subject.

It is logical to assume that an argument against Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy should systematically knock down those premises that are of the Soko-Qobo hue. Did Mr. Lakemfa do this?

His first piece, Swimming Against WTO and Okonjo-Iweala’s Candidacy, rails at the structural liabilities of the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO vis-a-viz Africa and the rest of the Third World. The title of the second article, The Fruitlessness Of An Okonjo-Iweala Leadership Of WTO, indicates of its thematic thrust.

https://elombah.com/okonjo-iweala-the-wto-and-a-naysayer-by-chuks-iloegbunam/