You can just about count the Nigerian reformers with serious clout on one hand. Fewer still, if any, match the conviction and determination of finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Her influence is not drawn from patronage by Nigeria’s elites, whom she has occasionally incensed with unpopular but necessary reform, but she has the support of President Olusegun Obasanjo – proven after a resignation threat caused a presidential U-turn.
A former chairman of the World Bank Development Committee, Dr Okonjo-Iweala is an intellectual heavyweight who studied at Harvard and has a PhD in regional economics and development from MIT. It is this that partly underpins her absolute conviction in the policy direction she is taking Nigeria. So far she has overhauled the budgeting and expenditure processes; halted spending of windfall gains from higher than expected oil prices; slashed the budget deficit and introduced unprecedented levels of transparency and disclosure in the national accounts. She has also prepared legislation to hold ministers and state governors accountable to spending plans and limits. Now she is targeting the bloated and wasteful public sector.
At her direction, several other reforms are under way, such as improving government tax collection capabilities and eliminating waste from tendering processes. With the economy in dire need of reform in numerous sectors, Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s firm action has been a necessary first step.
And she seems to be an unstoppable force. Nigeria has decided it will seek debt relief even though it is excluded from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. She argues that, on a per capita basis, Nigeria is not oil rich and receives the least aid in sub-Saharan Africa. She also insists its debt is odious, incurred by previous, illegitimate regimes.
To this end she has been campaigning in Europe – privately with Paris Club creditors (to whom Nigeria owes the bulk of its external debt) and publicly to win popular support. With the exception of South Africa’s Trevor Manuel, no other African finance minister commands such access to the world’s respected media outlets.
Unlike Mr Manuel, Dr Okonjo-Iweala seizes every opportunity to sell Nigeria’s reform story and win public support. Held in high regard internationally, Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s high salary initially caused suspicion at home – but as her reforms yield results, she is winning over her countrymen.
