NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA Vice-President of the World Bank

Q: Does Nigeria's development depend on the evolution of the political formula that takes into account the country's diverse characteristics such as regional, ethnic and religions and oil dependency?
A: Yes, I think the country's development does depend on the ability to take into account these various characteristics that you have mentioned. It is an amazingly complex country. What I find is that people outside of the country really do not understand the complexity of the place, the diversity of the more than 374 different languages that exist. And I mean different. Both the ethnic and geographical diversity that exist. The fact also that you have a natural resource-based economy that is highly dependent on one commodity - oil. I think that is not the best thing that has happened to us as a country because it is difficult to apply the resources that come from this natural resource in a way that takes into account this complexity or groups, religion and so on. And I don't think that the country can really move forward until a good formula is worked out to be able to apply the country's human and natural resources in the best way possible that can be accepted by everybody as being fair. There is already a perception - is this really fair the way resources are being distributed? The second issue is that any development in the country has to take into account the need to diversify from oil. I don't think the country can really move forward unless we are able to find a way to develop other sources of income or find other sources of growth for the economy apart from oil. Thus there are two issues - one, applying the resources that we have appropriately and secondly finding means to diversify the economy, which is very vital. And part of managing the resources that we have appropriately is also trying to deal with the enormous burden of debt which the country has, that amounts to $28 billion. Somehow, we have to find a way to reduce the burden of debt service moving forward and release resources for poverty alleviation programmes in the country.

Q: You left the World Bank in 2000 to serve in Nigeria as an Adviser on Economic Issues with special emphasis on debt management. You helped rationalize the management of Nigeria's debt and you worked with the Inter-Ministerial Team to help strengthen economic policies coordination. What were the main challenges that you had to face?
A: First of all, being asked by the President to come home and assist was a privilege and an honour. It allowed me to put some of the twenty years of experience acquired at the World Bank to good use for the country - something I have always dreamt about. Of course, when I came, there were enormous challenges dealing with the issue of the debt, because first of all, we had to reconcile the numbers and make sure we knew what we owed to whom. Thus there was some technical work to do. Then there was a management aspect - moving forward in trying to make sure that our debt service was managed in a way that didn't incur penalties because we were negligent in meeting this debt service or we delay (?). All these were challenges that one had to put in a system - systematize what we were doing and rationalize it. And there were some very good colleagues to work with. The person who is the present Director General of the Debt-Management Office - Mr. Akin Arikawe - was a good colleague to work with. There is Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili who is the Assistant to the President on budget; Mr. Oronsaye, the Permanent Secretary at the Presidency; Mr. El-Rufai who is Head of the Bureau for Public Enterprises; Mr. Onyema Ugochukwu, Head of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) - all these were colleagues who worked with me in trying to really make sure things worked out well, but above all I want to say that the President and the Vice President were very instrumental in making sure that the work got done. When they said, "come", they were serious in giving me the support I needed, the access I needed - both of them unstintingly and that really cleared the path because working with the civil service is quite challenging. Nigeria used to have one of the best civil services. In the 60's and 70's things were really good, but I think increasingly over the years, the civil service got degraded. I find amazingly some young talents just dying to be put to work, but nobody has really challenged them to use their training to do analysis. Thus it was a delight, and part of doing that work was bringing some of these young talents to the fore and giving them some training in analytic work that they needed and just building some capacity within the civil service. Also we got some people from the legislature for capacity enhancement, mainly the assistants to the legislators, because I felt that they have to understand the issues of the day. They have to understand issues of the budget - the reasoning and rationale, how it came to be put together. Thus, about 45 people got some training in analytic work, and they basically visited Washington, visited Abidjan with the African Development Bank to get some of this training.

Q: We know that you are a Vice President of the World Bank, but we want your opinion as a Nigerian, what do you think are the main challenges that Nigeria will face in the next two or three years?
A: I am speaking purely as a Nigerian and I want that to be made very clear.
I think the first thing is to ensure that the democratic process that has been launched does proceed in an orderly fashion. That elections are held and that they are free and fair. That will provide the political stability to go forward. I mean without that you cannot really move, so that has to be maintained. The second thing has to do with security issues, because there is this perception as to lack of security within the country. And you are not going to get the domestic private sector putting in their money unless they are sure that their lives and property are safe. And that is a big challenge that we face, but I think it is a challenge that can be met. I think during the election period, there may be some instability as people contest results. I hope this will be minimal and I expect things to settle down thereafter. And if we can maintain that then we have to deal with the problem of corruption and the huge problem of inadequate and decaying infrastructure. These are the key challenges.

Q: It's good you have mentioned security, but I think we should discuss the problem of infrastructure as well. Infrastructure is definitely something to be looked at….
A: I think that if you can assure people that their life is safe then there are other things that come. Besides we have this image problem on security and on corruption. Like I earlier said, the civil service has over the years been degraded and it is now known for corruption and embezzlement and that has to be firmly dealt with. The politicians exacerbate the corruption thing rather than tackling it as they should. The President has launched the basis to deal with corruption, but now it has to be moved forward very firmly, so that is a challenge that is coming and that is an ongoing struggle. It is not going to be an overnight kind of thing. Clearly if government can enact one or two vigorous sanctions, that will send a signal. Then we have an enormous challenge which I think is incredible - basic infrastructure - and this is where the issue of poverty alleviation comes to bear. This is what really government can do to help poor people get on and improve their lives. If you deal with the issues of availability of clean water, access to electricity and roads, I think those are the three basic infrastructures that can really impact the life of the average Nigerian. The fact that telecommunications is also coming into play and people in rural areas are also getting mobile phones is enormously exciting. And I think that it is a development that needs to be pushed in the coming years, because people can now communicate with those in towns and find out what is happening in terms of market prices for certain products that they are selling. Many people have children not only in the town but abroad and that can facilitate the transfer of resources, because you can communicate. If you are investing in some project in your town, you can phone to find out the progress and the mere fact that you can do this is enormously exciting. Thus rural telephone and rural communications will be a future development to watch and might help deal with the development of other infrastructures, but I tell you we just need to get electricity into the villages, we need to get water and we need to do the roads. Those are some of the challenges. I am not going to go into other issues like the education system that needs to be revamped, both in quantity but also we need to watch the quality. Again, I am a product of the education system of this country. I went to primary and secondary school here, and amazingly learned decent French in Nigeria, for example, because we had an amazingly strong educational system then, but now the quality seems to have deteriorated. We have two challenges there, quality and quantity. You know basic education, early childhood education and secondary education. And not to forget that you also need to train the leaders, so the quality of the University education has to be watched. There are many other challenges like HIV/AIDs. If we do not begin to take drastic steps now, I think this is an area that will come to haunt us. The President has been very clear that this is a priority, but I think the population needs to wake up more and more to that. It's much better than it was some years back, but we are still a long ways off from where we need to be on HIV/AIDS.

Q: AIDS, another difficult challenge, Do you think people need to be more educated about this crucial issue?
A: Absolutely! Like I said earlier, hardly anyone would talk about it in the past, but now it comes up in conversation, but not really enough. And you know I don't think behaviours have changed as much as one would like to see them change and I think some people still have their heads up in the clouds about this whole issue. I am afraid it might deal devastating blows to the economy. Five, six years down the line - if we don't wake up now and make it a very critical and urgent issue. These are some of the fears and challenges that I feel have to be tackled. On the other side is the fact that we have opportunities. First, is a fact that we have a strong human resource-base. Having said that, the educational system is not as good as what it used to be. One has to accept the fact that there are very many trained Nigerians not only here but also abroad, so we cannot really say we do not have the people. What we do not know in this country is how to deploy the trained talents we have in the right way. Somehow, we get it wrong all the time. We end up having the wrong people making decisions whereas we have the talents. People who are close to what is happening globally are there - even within the country. We also have a huge diaspora that is just gasping to help and nobody is really drawing on their talents. I think the key question for Nigeria is why do we get it wrong time and time again? Why do we have such a strong human resource base and yet do not utilize it? Why do we allow the same group of people to monopolize decision-making all the time and refuse to allow other talented Nigerians to have a say and help steer this country in the right direction? Why are people who don't really care about poor people, but only about themselves, governing? We are not like many of the other African countries that do not yet have such a strong human resource base; we do and yet fail to make use of it. And our women, in particular, have very strong talents that are presently being under-utilized in this country and need to be mobilized. They are already doing very well in the private sector but in the public sector we need to get women more to the fore, because I think they are the critical answer to some of the huge challenges on government and corruption in this country.
I am not saying women are the magic bullet, but I think they can contribute, because they are known for their strength in terms of managing finance. This is not an issue, it is not an opinion. It is a fact that is based on studies that have been made, and it shows that where women are managing in terms of the financial sector and so on, things go well. They tend to do better. Thus I am saying it, a little bit of tongue in cheek, but I mean it that if you get the right type of women, professional and properly trained, into key positions in the public sector in terms of the Ministry of Finance, managing the budget, running the key enterprises in the economy, running infrastructure services, you are going to see a difference.