Okonjo-Iweala appreciates Buhari’s personal intervention got her WTO DG job

 

• Says how Nigeria will benefit from WTO

The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was on her first official visit to Nigeria since she assumed her new role on March 1 has again expressed appreciation to President Muhammadu Buhari for his role in getting her into office.

She said that the president’s “personal and direct intervention” made her emergence possible.

According to a statement signed by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, Okonjo-Iweala spoke Monday when she paid a courtesy visit on President Buhari at the State House, Abuja.

“You nominated me, you wrote hundreds of letters, called up hundreds of world leaders. Without your personal and direct intervention, it may not have worked. The people of Nigeria also supported me massively. The youths were wonderful, always encouraging, backing me up on social media.

“Mr President, the world recognizes what you have done. Since its establishment, only men have led the WTO. Now, a woman has emerged for the first time, and she’s a Nigerian. We are so honoured,” Okonjo-Iweala was quoted to have said.

Adesina said that she apprised the President of the opportunities for Nigeria in the global organisation, as well as the challenges, stressing that “WTO will do more to help Nigeria, but we need to add value to our products in order to trade more. We should exploit all the opportunities in front of us.”

She added that the support and leadership of President Buhari will help her a lot in her position as DG.

The statement quoted President Buhari as telling the new WTO DG that despite the robust support Nigeria gave to her candidacy for the position, “You also earned it. We are happy you made it, but you earned it with your record of performance both at home and abroad.”

The President said Dr Okonjo-Iweala was putting Nigeria more on the world map, “and I congratulate you, as well as the country. I know you will represent us so well.”

President Buhari also used the opportunity to laud Nigerian women, pointing to key positions they hold in his administration like Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, and many others.

He said that the government would encourage the youths in similar fashion, “so that they can be ready for the challenges of the future.”

In a related development, the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, during a courtesy visit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama in Abuja yesterday has said that Nigeria can benefit from the foremost organisation by encouraging and pushing more trade as well as adding value to its products and exports more that will attract the rest of the world.

Okonjo-Iweala, said “Nigeria stands to benefit by encouraging and pushing more trade, becoming a bigger part of the multilateral trading system, and to do that Nigeria has to produce more, add value to its products and export more.  Right now Nigeria has 0.3% of world trade and 19% of Africa’s trade.  You could see that as very small but you could also turn it around and see it as a big opportunity to make use of what has happened to the Africa Continental Free Trade (ACFTA.)

“So, WTO will support Nigeria with capacity building and technical assistance to improve the quality of the products that we export, we will work  with entrepreneurs and producers to make that happen so that others can access other markets particularly  since we need to diversify away from oil and process agricultural products and this needs a lot of care. So, we hope to be able to provide that directly.”

She also assured that the WTO is going to work with other organizations that have access to more finance, such as the World Bank, the AfDB, the Asia Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to help Nigeria solve some of the deficits with respect to infrastructure and other areas as well as the regulatory framework for some of the trade areas in order strengthen Nigeria for bigger and larger trade particularly in the African continent.

Okonjo-Iweala, who is the first African to become the Director General of the WTO, assured financial support to Nigerian and African women through the International Trade Centre that has the capacity to train women entrepreneurs and help them access international markets in collaboration with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council.

“A lot of women already run businesses and they want to access markets. But one of the things they complain about is the quality of their products and access to marketing and how they can sell. So, those two things the WTO actually has capacity to be able to assist them. And we have already done something. We started with women and men who produce share butter and worked with a cooperative and we have been able to assist them to increase their production and meet their quality requirements to use share butter for cosmetics for 200 metric tons and others for 500 metric tons.  So, that is a specific example of what we can do working with women entrepreneurs.

“We would like to see the same thing with women in the fashion industry, there is a huge demand for Nigerian products, and African wears and fashion that we are so good at, yet we have not crystallized that industry in such a way that we can export to the rest of Africa.  So, with this AFCTA, we will be working with women in that industry to see how we can help you systematize and standardize your products and be able to sell more.

“We are also negotiating several agreements on e-commerce and the rules of trade to ensure a level playing field for the multilateral trading system and you know the technology platform you see in e-commerce is very important for our young people. So, we need to assure that they have all the means to be able to access this,” she added.

Earlier in his remarks, Onyeama congratulated Okonjo-Iweala, for being the first woman and first African to become the Director General of the WTO, stressing that she made Nigeria proud by attaining the position with hard work, diligence and competence.