Okonjo-Iweala Speaks On Rumors Of Running For Nigerian Presidency, Quitting WTO Job

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organization and a Nigerian by birth, has stated that she will not run for president in 2023, calling the notion “utterly ludicrous and untrue.”

Okonjo-Iweala remarked in response to reports that she is considering leaving from her WTO post just seven months into her four-and-a-half-year term.

Rather, she said, “I just got here. I am enjoying what I’m doing. It is a very exciting job and I am trying to have some successes here.”

The WTO chief began the year with “a plan to score rapid negotiation triumphs that she believed would help revitalize the dysfunctional Geneva-based trade agency,” according to Bloomberg News, but she has fully grasped the frustrating reality of the WTO’s historical lethargy.

Five trade officials in Geneva who declined to be identified were quoted by the New York-based publication.

Okonjo-Iweala has repeatedly informed ambassadors and employees this year that she might easily leave the post, and that she hasn’t purchased any furnishings for her temporary house in Geneva, according to authorities.

An early retirement of the WTO’s top trade official would add yet another layer of uncertainty to an organization already beset by existential crises, leading states to decide that the WTO is no longer a credible venue for tackling their common concerns, according to the medium.

The WTO, which requires consensus agreement among all 164 members to finalize multilateral agreements, is no stranger to deep differences and a lack of confidence.

For the better part of a decade, the WTO’s rigorous negotiating structure and the different interests of its broad membership have prevented the organization from producing anything substantive.

Last year, Okonjo-predecessor, Iweala’s Roberto Azevedo, resigned from the WTO a year before his term was set to finish, citing a lack of progress as the key reason for his departure.

According to Bloomberg News, some Geneva trade officials believe Okonjo-Iweala intends to run for president of Nigeria in the 2023 election.

In a statement to Bloomberg News, Okonjo-Iweala declined to comment on her threats to leave, but she rejected any interest in running for Nigerian president, calling such speculation “utterly ludicrous and untrue.”

“I just got here. I am enjoying what I’m doing,” she told Bloomberg News in a television interview. “It is a very exciting job and I am trying to have some successes here.

The true test of Okonjo-leadership Iweala’s will come in November, when she hosts the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference, which is the organization’s highest decision-making body, according to Bloomberg. WTO members have yet to make significant progress on the three priority areas Okonjo-Iweala identified for possible outcomes at the biennial meeting, according to Bloomberg.

They are: a commitment to decrease trade-distorting agriculture policy; and a framework to enhance global trade in vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.