Former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, appearing on Aljazeera programme, The Stream, said there is hope for Nigeria to crawl out of the economic recession it found itself. She advised the Nigerian government to focus on certain fundamentals like stable exchange rate among others.
The globally renowned Economist charged African nations to concentrate on solving macroeconomic problems as key to fixing the continent’s economic challenges. According to her, having a firm control over the rate of inflation in addition to ensuring a stable exchange rate should be prioritised by African governments.
In a typical reminiscence on her days in the Nigerian government, she said: “I have contributed the best I could to the country. It is still the most interesting country in the world. It is better to leave those who are managing now to say what they would do.
“All I can say is that there are solutions. Nigeria is a vibrant country. I love it so much. I know it is going to come out of this one way or another,”
“One of the things you learn as you get wiser is to talk less as you grow older. I have spent my time contributing to the country. It will be better to live those managing the economy to do what they know how to do. There can be solutions.
“I am not a typical politician. I went in as a technocrat. I think on the continent we have seen a period when the economy was doing well, in the last two years we have been experiencing challenges. We need to focus on the basics which are macro-economics. You must get the fundamentals like having a stable exchange rate and having inflation under control.
“I served my country for seven years and it was a great honour. The second time was very tough but it is still an honour. I am not the only person who is a repository of knowledge. There are other people who can equally try their hands in running the economy.
“I will advise young people not to wait for employment. They should create jobs to employ six people or more. During my time in government, we had a programme called You Win designed to support young entrepreneurs. The whole idea was to have a business plan competition.
“The idea was that they should create jobs. And each, created 9-10 jobs. The World Bank did an evaluation of it and found it good. I do believe that the government should come in. We started a peer to peer mentoring. Now, one of the things I want to say is that creating employment is not only about struggles, it is about managing success.
” Also, counseling people on accounting, bookkeeping and not falling apart is very important.”
On her service in Nigeria, she said: “It was a very tough fight, I must thank my team, you don’t do it alone, I had the support of an economic team in the Ministry of Finance. It was tough because at the end of the day you need to have some principles.
“The average life span of a Finance Minister is two years in a country. No one likes a Finance Minister because it is the business of saying no. It is very difficult and challenging. It was interesting for me. I wish I had seen myself as wielding power. All I saw was the job because I was seeing myself working for the country.”
