By Nnanna Ochereome
WHEN my pal, Paul Nwabuikwu, the Special Assistant to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (NOI), our Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, called to inform me that his principal had written a book on her first "missionary journey" to fix Nigeria's economy, and that a copy was on the way for my appraisal, I was full of excitement.
I wanted to see what she had to say about the dramatic parting of ways between her and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Was my curiosity quenched after spending the past weekend reading through the 198 pages of the book entitled: Reforming the Unreformable, Lessons from Nigeria? Keep your hats on. We will get to that shortly. Let's first discuss the book itself.
The book consists of eight chapters written in very simple, readable English good enough for any averagely educated person to grasp. Dr Okonjo-Iweala obviously writes just as she speaks. You could hear her clear, smooth voice ringing out of the pages in that peculiar way of hers, totally avoiding pretentious Ivy League academism.
This book, in its simplicity and clarity of language, reminds you of Lee Kwan Yew's big book: From Third World to First, the Singapore Story. I dare speculate NOI was inspired by Lee's work.
It traces the journey of Nigeria's economy from a diversified agro-based beginnings to the effects of "the curse of oil", whereby the value of our Naira went burst, the incentive to invest in agriculture flew out of the window and Nigeria wound up a miserable mono-economy.
Part of the distortion it created included runaway corruption and a $30 billion foreign debt burden that hung around Nigeria's frame like a "giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief" as Shakespeare would say.
When Obasanjo was elected President in 1999, top on his agenda was debt "forgiveness" or at least "relief". We all saw how he ran himself ragged with public funds repeatedly to Western capitals. Once the president was introduced to NOI the partnership clicked. NOI came on board as an adviser.
But it was not until after Obasanjo won his re-election in 2003 and he took extra-ordinary steps to bring NOI home as Finance Minister, ("dollar salary" and all) that Nigerians started taking note. She had just resigned her position as Vice President and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank to come home and "give back" to a system that produced her.
This book describes in lucid detail, the many internecine intrigues both within and outside the Economic Team. She discusses at length the various reforms to promote transparency and reduce corruption.
But the most compelling part of the narrative is the ambitious debt buy-back deal which led to the cancellation of a massive 60 per cent of Nigeria's $30 billion debt, thus exiting her from the Paris Club albatross.
She noted: "Nigeria's debt relief package was the second ever for any country in the Paris Club's 50-year history, and Nigeria was the first low-income country to be allowed to execute a buy-back on a portion of its debt".
Okonjo-Iweala rates her first coming to fix the economy a great success. Quite evidently, she was not the only one seeing it this way. Shortly after she resigned from the Obasanjo cabinet she was snaffled by the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, to return as the Managing Director of the Bank.
Right now, she is back on her old job as Finance Minister under a different president. In fact, NOI even ran for the Presidency of the World Bank and lost to America's Jim Yong Kim. She is rated one of the most influential women in the world today.
But even Okonjo-Iweala admitted that her first sojourn, as successful as it was, still fell short on so many fronts. Some of the reforms could not be sustained after she and Obasanjo the regime left office. She admitted there were many unfinished businesses, mainly in the areas of making the gains of reform to reach the grassroots and provide jobs for the youth.
And now, I bring out all she had to say of her acrimonious parting of ways with Obasanjo, and I will quote her very words.
"In any event, it was also apparent that, with the achievement of debt relief, the president's greatest "ask" of the (Economic Team), and in particular of me as its leader, had been achieved. The intense attention and support given to the team was no longer viewed as necessary or important.
My sudden resignation from government in August 2006 certainly did not help matters. It left the team's members upset and reeling, despite the fact that I had been moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs three months earlier, and then removed as head of the Economic Team.
"I resigned because the principles of transparency, openness, and trust that had guided my work in government no longer seemed to obtain and I felt I could not deliver on any important reform agenda in that environment...".
NOI did not end the work without digging into her experience as a reformer of one of the world's most challenging economies to proffer guidelines and strategies for prospective reformers.
NOI is back to continue from where she stopped. It is now time to address some of those "unfinished businesses", particularly diversifying the economy, creating jobs and reforming the Customs, one of the sectors she could not obtain the support of the Obasanjo regime to delve into. She should, however, note that her second time around has not been as well received as the first.
The controversy over slow budget implementation this year, largely dumped at her doorstep has not helped the perception that this is not quite the NOI of 2003 – 2007.
We wait to see the jobs tumble out of the woodwork and non-oil items taking a bigger space in our national revenue due to expansion into new frontiers.
For NOI the nation waits for new results. The wait is beginning to seem long.
Vanguard Nigeria
Nigeria's economy can be fixed if only corruption is out of the system for good.