•Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday recounted how a deliberate communication strategy helped Nigeria secure the landmark $30 billion Paris Club debt relief during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Okonjo-Iweala spoke in Abuja at the public presentation of The Pain and the Promise, a new book by communications expert and public affairs analyst, Paul Nwabuikwu.
Reflecting on her time as Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala said: “I had been brought in from the World Bank to help straighten up and strengthen Nigeria’s weak finances, including getting rid of the $30 billion of the country’s debt owed to the Paris Club.”
According to her, the ambitious reform agenda required Nigerians to understand and support difficult economic policies.
She said she knew “Nigeria would have to undertake serious economic reforms of the type that would demand understanding and sacrifices from Nigerians.”
She explained that one of the key pillars of the reform programme was effective public communication, which informed her decision to recruit Nwabuikwu into the economic team.
“One important component in my mind then was that we would need a crack communications person or team to help us reach Nigerians, to explain all of this in simple language. That is where Paul came in,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala described Nwabuikwu as “smart, articulate and compassionate, a terrific writer and communicator,” adding that his communication strategy played a significant role in the success of the reform agenda.
“I can say without fear of contradiction that we wouldn’t have had as much success with the reform programme if we had not had a masterful steering of communications from Paul,” she said.
She explained that Nwabuikwu understood that reforms in a democracy required more than policy implementation, adding, “Reform is not just about writing new laws and enforcing new policies. It’s about persuading people, explaining trade-offs and building enough trust that governments can keep pushing through obstacles.”
However, the WTO chief lamented that Nigeria’s persistent ethnic, religious and regional divisions have continued to slow national development.
According to her, “Until Nigerians can overcome the ethnic, religious and regional divides embedded in our society to forge a social compact that agrees key directions for the nation, directions that remain steady, no matter who is in government, I think Nigeria will find it difficult to move forward at the pace required to create enduring prosperity for our people.”
In another development, Okonjo-Iweala urged Nigeria and the entire African continent to be deliberate in adding value to the continent’s huge mineral resources before export.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the Seventh African Emerging Markets Forum hosted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), she explained that the continent was overly dependent on other nations for essential commodity supply. The WTO DG noted that Africa holds an estimated 30 per cent of the world’s non-mineral reserves.
However, “Instead of the extract and export model that has been the source of so much volatility, economic underperformance, corruption, conflict, and banditry, the goal should be higher value, higher productivity growth, driven by the development of sub-regional value chains and integration into potential supply networks,” she counselled.
“Quite frankly, the time to seize this opportunity is now, as geopolitics exerts some demand pressure for critical mineral supply chain diversification. If we miss this opportunity, I am afraid we would have missed a lot.”
Nevertheless, “fortunately, Africa’s leaders seem to be moving in the right direction, with Morocco using its phosphate resources to produce electric vehicle components for international markets, particularly for Chinese automakers.
“In Zambia, DRC, Mozambique and Angola, and here also in Nigeria, moves are being made to see how to add value to critical minerals, but these efforts need more systematisation and harmonisation, including a look at sub-regional approaches, so that countries are not picked up one by one in sub-optimal bilateral agreements.
“The continent can seize green comparative advantages by harnessing abundant renewable energy potential to power minerals processing.”
She said paths to global trade resilience – reforming the multilateral trading system and broadening the global economic base – are deeply complementary.
“To attract the kind of investments we’ve been talking about, developing countries will need to improve their business climate, upgrade hard and soft infrastructure, and provide a stable macroeconomic environment,” Okonjo-Iweala added.
Consequently, she urged African countries to trade among themselves, noting that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) presents an opportunity for the continent to grow its value addition.
