Ambassador Mariam Katagum, the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, has said that Nigeria is in talks with the United States of America and South Korea to ensure that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala becomes the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The U.S. Government is obstructing the recommendation of Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance for the top global job.
The minister, while thanking several others for supporting the former Nigerian Minister of Finance for the position, said the Federal Government would lobby other nations to secure the needed consensus.
Katagum, however, assured the Nigerians of regular updates on the quest to making sure that Okonjo-Iweala becomes the first woman and African to head the global organisation.
In a statement yesterday in Abuja, Katagum, who also chairs the campaign strategy team for the mission, said everything legal and diplomatic would be deployed to seeing to the announcement of the Nigerian as next WTO chief executive at a Special General Council meeting holding on November 9.
In the meantime, she noted that the United States was holding back its support because it preferred the South Korean rival for the post.
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She said:
Government wishes to inform that the third and final round of consultations for the selection of the WTO DG, which commenced in Geneva on October 19, 2020, was concluded on October 27, 2020.
The chair of WTO General Council, Amb. David Walker of New Zealand, with the facilitators of the selection process, chair of the Dispute Settlement Body and chair of the Trade Policy Review Body (Troika), on October 28 at the meeting of WTO Heads of Delegation in Geneva, informed the WTO membership that the Nigerian candidate for the WTO DG, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, secured overwhelming support of members both in terms of number and geographical spread.
She has therefore emerged as the candidate most likely to gain consensus as WTO DG.
