Nigeria’s former Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been nominated as the next Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
According to a letter written to embassies of the African Union (AU) in Ethiopia by the Nigerian mission to the AU, President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Okonjo-iweala after withdrawing an earlier nomination of Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah, who is Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the WTO, and deputy DG of the organisation.
The election of a new WTO DG is scheduled to hold in Geneva, Switzerland in 2021 for a four-year term.
The term of the new DG would run from 2021 to 2025 after former Director-General of the organisation, Roberto Azevedo, steps down a year to the end of his second term.
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“The embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and permanent mission to the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa present compliments to all embassies and permanent missions in Addis Ababa and has the honour to inform that the Federal Government of Nigeria has withdrawn the candidacy of Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah for election to the position of director-general of the World Trade Organisation.
“Nigeria is therefore pleased to request the support of esteemed AU member states as well as permanent missions and embassies in Addis Ababa in favour of the candidacy of Okonjo-Iweala”, the letter read.
Okonjo-Iweala is currently the chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, a public-private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.
She also sits on the board of Twitter and is a former managing director (operations) at the World Bank.
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