A year after leaving office as Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, remains the most sought after personality who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan.
A week doesn’t go by without her name being splattered on the pages of traditional newspapers and online outfits.
Many detractors and paid hands have linked her with almost every corrupt deal during her time as economy coordinating minister.
But she continues to soar high and gain more recognition on the international scene, as she maintains her anti-corruption stance.
On June 2, she gave the keynote address at the MIT Doctoral Hooding Ceremony 2016 Commencement, the second speaker to achieve this feat thereby sealing her status as a global citizen.
She took it a step further on June 7 when she addressed graduands of Columbia University’s School of Public Policy at its Commencement.
If Okonjo-Iweala was indeed corrupt she would not have the temerity to continuously kick against corruption in her speeches, and such invitations would not have even been offered to her because the international community would not want to associate with individuals ‘perceived’ to be corrupt.
The volleys range from Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) using an allegation by former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Charles Soludo, to the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC) accusing her of colluding with former federal Attorney General, Mohammed Adoke, in a “judgment scam”.
Okonjo-Iweala argued at the Africa CEO Forum on March 21, 2016 that “we have to fight corruption in two ways; one is by punishing those who steal, and making sure they pay for what they do.
“But we also must plug all the holes by building institutions and systems that prevent corruption in the first place.
“If you have a financial system for running your financial accounts that is not computerised, that is not technologically based, you are still transferring cash, as we were doing in my country up until 2003, 2004, then you are opening up the place to a lot of leakages.”
• Femi Hassan
Lagos
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