Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has few illusions about how tough the next year will be. Nigeria’s finance minister realises she will be targeted by opposition politicians jostling for power ahead of elections in February 2015 and keen to denounce the government’s economic policies. “It will be brutal,” she tells The Banker in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. “We’re going to see extreme bashing. Somebody has to be the scapegoat.”
Her international audience is more sympathetic. Nigeria’s strong macroeconomic performance in the past five years has seen its standing abroad rise considerably. Many frontier and emerging market investors crave exposure to the oil-rich west African country’s rapidly growing economy and population of 170 million, by far the largest in Africa. Jim O’Neill, the influential former Goldman Sachs chief economist, has dubbed it, alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, a MINT – a group whose global significance he believes will only increase.
