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However, there is a replay of some of the flaws that led to the fall of Jonathan. First, the nation is witnessing another era where party in-fighting is taking the centre stage instead of good governance. The Bukola Saraki face-off with the All Progressive Congress and the President Buhari silent involvement in attempts to ensure his impeachment is a chilling reminder of how the federal might was used to ensure that Rotimi Amaechi didn’t get it easy in Rivers State after the fallout with President Jonathan. Under President Buhari, the Nigerian Police has exercised unconstitutional powers... https://chinekotam..com/2018/06/segun-adeniyis-against-run-of-play-past.html

Writing a book chronicling her reforms is the best thing a thoroughbred public servant can do for a nation. It shows the twists and turns in policymaking and teaches the coming generation about the correct approach to take. So, Mr Writer, she has succeeded in passing her message across.

Books are important to the political development of any nation. We should be thanking Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for giving future generations a template to confront challenges facing this nation.

NOI also stepped on powerful toes by stopping the fuel subsidy scams. She should be praised for this and not someone writing about why she was going for morning prayers

NOI wrote about plugging leakages, creating a system to combat corruption. This ignoramus didn’t see this in the book.

Is the book about religion or how to solve a hydra-headed monster called corruption?

Who even gave you the right to police other people’s faith?

This article is meaningless on many fronts. Of the whole issues explored by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that are relevant to this nation, look at what someone is busy talking about.

So because she was the minister, does that stop her from practising her religion?

This one has nothing to write about. Why not just keep this ignorance to yourself.

great

TAMSNigeria:
If you want to be recognized at your place of work: Speak up, quantify your result and claim credit for your work.

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Because she was the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, and that position was as powerful as the VP. She was a great and powerful influence in the Jonathan administration. Moreover, what is wrong in the president calling a trusted minister for advice or to confide in her?

sincerlyyo:
Why will Presido call you about chibok girls ? Are you defence minister ? Everyone will have a positive story to write about themselves.

She is an international figure, and someone with high ethical standards. A rare public servant. She built her name from hard work, honesty and intelligence. It is a shame that Nigeria is trying hard to drag her name in the mud.

They fail to realise that it was the money she released for the purchase of arms that ensured that many territories overrun by the insurgents were recovered before the 2015 election. If most Nigerians have collective amnesia, the EFCC should have more sense. But unfortunately, it is only acting a prepared script.

She served at the World Bank, have we heard any news of misappropriation? If there is anyone who misappropriated the recovered loot, it is Dasuki, and he is cooling his heels in detention. Why impugn the character of a noble servant of this land?

Dasuki is in their custody. What is he being held for if not for the money released to him? Why has the EFCC decided to chase shadows over substance?

To get more prove of her thoroughness, the EFCC had earlier released a memo in regard to the arms scandal which showed that Okonjo Iweala insisted that the former NSA boss must be accountable to President Jonathan in respect to the fund. Someone who had ulterior motives would not have made this request. It is left to the EFCC to do its job with a high standard of professionalism by questioning the man who was handed the money instead of the person who had the interest of the country at heart and demanded accountability.

The EFCC has become a shadow of its former self; a political tool in the hands of the ruling party to witch-hunt perceived threats to their paymasters.

This is clearly politically motivated. Someone is certainly scared of Okonjo-Iweala and her potential to turn the stakes around if she expresses interest in the coming election. This is coming despite her political disinterestedness.

They have documents that show that the monies were given to the Office of the National Security Adviser for the purchase of arms, why this wasteful rigmarole?

This is just a knee-jerk reaction from those who want to discredit her. 2019 is around the corner and they know that her ever increasing and enviable international profile is a threat to the workers of mediocrity in this country.

Guma and Logo Local Government Areas would still have remained fertile soils and hardworking people that feed the nation, but for the bold terror that was unleashed on them by the Fulani herdsmen at the first dawn of 2018. Terror does not gain boldness overnight; it blossoms from the little drops of silence watered down its nursery beds in time of germination. The Fulani herdsmen are no different. Some years back, the full scale terror was in Agatu.
Like Guma and Logo, Agatu was a river of blood and wailings once. More than three hundred people were butchered- lawful men, armless women and innocent children- as retribution for the death of Fulani cattle. A killing that Angele Dinkongue Atangana, of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, had described as the worst she had witnessed in her twenty years of working as a humanitarian. Terribly enough, while Agatu was collapsing under the weight of the Fulani herdsmen, the Shia sect massacre by the agents of the state was still fresh, Enugu and Taraba states were also under the siege of the herdsmen, and we had an Inspector General of Police who was busy trying to downplay the deaths in Agatu. These reminders are necessary to enable us see the pattern of impunity in play here....http://valourdigest.com/fulani-herdsmen-president-buharis-silence-mene-tekel-upharsin/

It has been brought to my attention that a number of fake news items with my photo and fake voice recordings of me making political utterances are circulating on social media.

I want the public to beware of such fake news items. They are being put out by politically motivated people with malicious intent.

It is the 2019 political season and such people are desperate to destroy and distract for power.

I want to state categorically, as I have always done, that I will not be distracted from the focused international assignments I am engaged with.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/261706/ngozi-okonjo-iweala-alerts-the-public-on-fake-news-item-au.html

A man with foresight is hardly appreciated by his own people. This has been the fate of many great men in times of moral crises; this has always been the fate of great men and women of vision too. Like Galileo, they are maligned when they point to a destination that many are often too myopic to see; this has been the case of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a two-time finance minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Recently, I read with complete astonishment, various name-calling against the industrious and visionary former minister of finance, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala. As a student of Banking and Finance, during her second return as minister, I considered her my role model in this field, and followed all her policies and the raisons d’etre of the policies keenly. For her detractors and those who are passive readers of opinions, I have decided to delve into certain economic reforms in Nigeria today that we owe to Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala.

In her first term as minister of finance under President Obasanjo, she laid down the groundwork of the Nigerian Economy. She pursued privatisation vigorously, and the deregulation and liberalization of key sectors of the economy. But, she is perhaps most remembered for her success in securing a debt relief to the tune of $18 billion from the Paris club. This freed Nigeria from the burden of debt for some time.

However, her second stint as a minister under President Jonathan is the more controversial, and perhaps the most defining moment of her career as a minister. She stepped on toes when she identified the loopholes in the petroleum industry and recommended the removal of subsidy on fuel. The eventual removal of the subsidy caused a nationwide uproar, with massive protests on the streets for many days. The opposition party, now the ruling party, expressed its vociferous opposition to the policy, and encouraged more street demonstrations. Alhaji Lai Mohammed, then the spokesperson of the ACN, called the removal of fuel subsidy ‘an instigation of fresh crisis’. Therefore, it came as a surprise to many when the current ruling party did a turnaround and embraced a full subsidy removal immediately it assumed control of power.

Again, she advocated saving for the rainy day, because like the great thinker that she is, she knew that oil prices would not always soar, and Nigeria would need savings from the days of plenty to cushion the effects of a fall in oil prices. Today, whenever she is criticised for not saving, one is tempted to wonder on what planet the critics were when state governors took the Federal Government to the Supreme Court in 2012, asking the court to stay action on plans of the FG to move $2 billion from the Excess Crude account to the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Imagine my surprise when the same governors who opposed saving for the rainy day now started crying blue murder when the onset of recession hit Nigeria after the Jonathan administration lost the last election.

Luckily today, the Sovereign Wealth Fund stands at over $2 billion as at September 2017, and it was considered the ‘most innovative Sovereign Wealth Fund’ in 2013 by the influential European CEO magazine.

While Dr Okonjo-Iweala was up-in-arms about saving for the future, she did not live with the illusion that the present was perfect. Admittedly, unemployment was at a high in 2012, with an estimated 54% of Nigerian youths unemployed. That was a significant time bomb by any standard. To address this impending implosion, she inaugurated the YouWIN project for youths. This was part of her plan to create 1.8 million jobs yearly to deal a fatal blow to youth unemployment. Though the scheme only created 22,000 direct jobs and another 88,000 indirect jobs, it was a bold statement towards ending unemployment through job creation. No doubt, the thousands of youths who benefitted from it will remain ever grateful, and independent, and drive in more jobs. Today, this initiative has been turned into YouWIN Connect, with many modifications. For example, it’s now just an entrepreneurial training without the guaranteed loan to start a business like what Madam Okonjo-Iweala conceived.

One other intervention worthy of mention is her effort at creating a business-friendly environment for foreign investors. She pursued an aggressive plan on the ease of doing business in Nigeria. Mrs. Okonjo Iweala took steps to free the seaports from human bottlenecks constituted by the various agencies at the ports. Today, the present government has followed in this path by modifying the executive order on the ease of doing business and making it more effective.

Indeed, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala was able to carry out more reforms in other critical sectors like mortgage financing, or cleaning up the payrolls; reforming the pension system, and setting up a Nigerian development bank. Development Bank of Nigeria, as it is called, was established to protect the interests of Nigeria’s Micro, Medium and Small Scale Enterprises who operate in the informal sector, and constitute the structural base of the Nigerian economy, as they contribute as much as 47.8% of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The bank is up and running today, and we have Okonjo-Iweala to thank for that.

No doubt, she could have done more for Nigeria, with her genius and experience. But we should also remember that Nigeria presents you with obstacles each time you try to scold her towards the path to greatness. We must not quickly forget about how her mother was kidnapped when Mrs. Iweala stepped on the toes of the fraudulent petroleum marketers by cutting down oil subsidy. Her achievements in Nigeria and around the world will always speak for her.



Adele Adeniji is a public affairs analyst based in Port Harcourt. He can be reached on adele.adeniji2020@gmail.com

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of finance, says her statement blaming the lack of political will to save funds under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan has been taken out of context.

Speaking on the Chilean saving example at the George Washington University on Thursday, the former minister had said “zero political will to save in the last administration” was responsible for some of the challenges facing the country....https://www.thecable.ng/okonjo-iweala-govs-not-gej-lacked-will-save/amp

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A man with foresight is hardly appreciated by his own people. This has been the fate of many great men in times of moral crises; this has always been the fate of great men and women of vision too. Like Galileo, they are maligned when they point to a destination that many are often too myopic to see; this has been the case of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a two-time finance minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria...Read more https://newsbreakers.ng/five-enduring-reforms-thank-okonjo-iweala/

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