Former Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, has broken the jinks by emerging as the first African and the first female to attain the position of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Dr Okonjo-Iweala became the finalist after eliminating South Korea’s current Trade Minister, Yoo Myung-hee in a fierce battle for the coveted job on Monday night.
Report has it that the former World Bank’s Director General who scored 104 out of 164 votes casted has the backing of influential nations within the global power bloc.
The New Diplomat Europe’s outpost office gathered that with the EU nations and the United States moving in the opposite direction, a move that triggered a deadlock between the two powerful geopolitical allies for the first time in many years, it was the decisive and quiet support of China that finally tipped the scales in Okonjo-Iweala’s favour.
Okonjo-Iweala, 66, served as Nigeria’s first female finance and later foreign minister, and has a 25-year career behind her as a development economist and international finance expert at the World Bank, eventually becoming its number two.
She is also on Twitter’s board of directors and is a special envoy for the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 fight.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala however, has successfully edged out South Korea’s Myung-hee in the race to becoming WTO Director General.
