5 Things you need to know about Okonjo Iweala after becoming the first female Director General OF WTO

Nigeria’s Okonjo Iweala emerges first African and female Director General of the World Trade Organization today.

Though everyone knows that she is a Nigerian, here are other things you need to know about her;

1. She began her school at the age of six at the government school in the town of her birth before her family moved to Lagos.

She began her secondary education at Kings college Yaba in 1939.

Okonjo attended University College, Ibadan in 1948-49, but registered for correspondence courses with the University of London.

His studies as an external student of the University of London from 1948 to 1951 led to Okonjo being awarded a B.Sc. in Mathematics, Logic and Scientific Method in 1951.

2. Okonjo married Kamene Ofunne and they had seven children. The most famous of these seven children is Ngozi Okonjo (born 13 June 1954) who married the neurosurgeon Ikemba Iweala and is now known as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

3. She also served two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria, the first 2003-2006 and the second 2011-2015.

4. Okonjo-Iweala spent a 25-year career at the World Bank as a development economist, scaling the ranks to the Number 2 position of Managing Director, Operations (2007–2011).

5. She is a writer and here are some of the book that she wrote;

– Fighting Corruption is Dangerous : The story behind the headlines – A frontline account from Nigeria’s former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, of how to fight corruption and lessons learned for governance and development. Published by MIT Press, (2018).

– Okonjo-Iweala, Ngozi. Reforming the unreformable : lessons from Nigeria (First MIT Press paperback ed.)

– Shine a Light on the Gaps – an essay on financial inclusion for African Small Holder Farmers, published by Foreign Affairs, (2015), co-authored with Janeen Madan.

– Funding the SDGs: Licit and Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries, published by Horizons Magazine, (2016).