Opinion: Swimming Against WTO and Okonjo-Iweala’s Candidacy, By Owei Lakemfa
…the IMF and the World Bank are two monkeys who take turns in carrying each other on their backs, while their child, the WTO, hops from one tree to another playing at nurturing world trade. That imperial family of three have, for 55 years now, carried out a sustained fight to kill UNCTAD, the baby born by the wider world to handle beneficial trade, multilateral relations and all-round human development.
A fourth truth is that the personae of Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has been so ingrained in the consciousness or sub-consciousness of many Nigerian middle class elements, that to say anything negative about her is to commit a crime, if not a sin. In fact, there are some rooting for her to succeed Buhari as the next president of Nigeria, my dear country that lays prostrate after decades of relentless pounding by her progressive and conservative children.
Trade had been central to European voyages across the world. The Europeans came to Africa in search of new markets. They first traded in goods like mirrors and guns, and then humans. When slave trade was no longer lucrative, they banned it and used this as pretext to colonise some African territories like Lagos.
After the Second World War, the victorious allies decided to control the economy and finances of the world. They met in 1944 at the Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, where the American International Bank for Reconstruction and Development , which was charged with giving out loans, credits and grants, was rechristened the World Bank. A sister agency, the International Monetary Fund , was also established at the meeting to remove ‘trade barriers’.
On the other hand, although the World Bank is made up of 189 countries, only an American can be its president. In other words, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, despite her 25-year service in the Bank, and holding such a high sounding position as managing director cannot be the World Bank president.
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