Nigeria’s first female minister of finance and the prime candidate for the office of the director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Dr. (Mrs.) Okonjo-Iweala, joins a list of eminent Africans to have received the award.
In 2019, Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), won the award for his outstanding work at the bank and a sterling career in agriculture and finance.
Other eminent Nigerians to have bagged the award are Muhammad Sanusi II (2011), former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; Aliko Dangote (2014), president of the Dangote Group of Companies.
Sanusi won the first edition of the award in 2011, Adesina has won the award twice — 2013 and 2019, while Okonjo-Iweala is also the first Nigerian woman to clinch the award.
The award comes weeks after David Walker, the chair of the general council of the WTO and Facilitators of the process for the appointment of the DG formally submitted her name as the best candidate to be DG.
Okonjo-Iweala emerged the overwhelming choice of WTO member-countries following a keenly contested race in which she got the majority support of the 164 member countries.
