By Ejike Umunnabuike Jr, Iyasiki Dan-Opulah & Lami Sheikh /
Newsdiaryonline.com
A passionate appeal has been made to the President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama to see Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo –Iweala’s candidature as an experience-driven gender one which will benefit America and the entire world.
Specifically, President Obama, has also been urged to consider the candidature of Nigeria’s flag bearer in the World Bank Presidential race as, “one of excellence, expertise, richer intellectual –infrastructure, higher degree of emotional intelligence and robust foreign –diplomacy credentials capped with academic over-achievement processes over her co-competitors”.
Retired Nigerian military officer, Senator John Nanzip Shagaya gave the advocacy in Abuja, Tuesday, April 4th, 2012 in an exclusive interview with Newsdairyonline.Com Shagaya, who between October –December 1993, was ECOMOG [now, ECOMIL] Field Commander, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has equally made similar appeals to the Presidents of European Union,EU countries and leaders of Asian nations.
He reminded them of the need for them to reciprocate the positive international multi-lateral, bilateral investments and allied institutional contributions Nigeria had made towards their needs.Besides he recalled that Nigeria always moved to support them in their time of need.
Nigeria’s Finance Minister & Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. [Mrs.] Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , Senator Shagaya, said, has all the needed wherewithal to reposition the World Bank, come June, 2012, if endorsed and appointed the next president.He however stressed that a re-inforced shuttle diplomatic advocacy in support of Nigeria’s bid for the world bank presidency is needed.
Shagaya’s appeal comes as the title-chase to the prestigious headship of the Bretton wood Institution -powered financial body, brings to the arena of global political contention, emotive appeals, power-play, intrigues, racial bias, ego and affinity to ensure leadership dominance.
Senator Shagaya, a 15-Handicap Golfer, author, initiator and sponsor of the 2008 Nigeria’s National Climate Change Commission Bill, in the 6th Session of the Nigerian Senate, is therefore passionately appealing to the American President and those of the European and Asian Nations to set emotionality aside, reconsider their positions and rally round Nigeria .
He draws the attention of these World leaders to the rare and amazingly enthralling core personality development traits that currently define and path-find the challenges of globalization, economy, international politics, culture, secondary socialization and international best practices.He said these are basic values, norms and ethos that Dr. [Mrs.] Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a First Class Economics Graduate of the Harvard University, USA, internalizes.
Describing Dr. [Mrs.] Okonjo-Iweala, as a rare genius in a generation amongst her peers with balanced cognitive capacities as well as skilled professionalism , Senator Shagaya, Nigeria’s former Minister of Interior in the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida Administration said, she has in the course of her service to her nation, garnered huge international diplomacy experience, having functioned as Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, during which she discharged her duty schedules creditably .
Shagaya used the instance of the interview to offer issues bordering on President Barack Obama’s moments of decision-taking vis-a-vis his likely dilemma over assuaging the American electorate in 2012 which is an election year, in which he has to decide between “pleasing the voting populations and satisfying wider international interests or considerations”.
According to Senator Shagaya,” in spite of President Obama’s bid for re-election for a second term in office, the World Bank Presidency Bid, should not be an election issue as America’s institutional endorsement to Dr, [Mrs.] Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s candidate for the Presidency of the World Bank, would be understood by the same enlightened American electorate, who see Dr. [Mrs] Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as a gender candidate representing the voices of women and men globally, who have suffered divergent rural poverty and urban misery profiles”.
Shagaya, further appealed to President Barack Obama and the American citizenry, to see America’s endorsement of Dr. [Mrs] Okonjo-Iweala, as their bilateral support to Nigeria and by extension the African Continent, considering the long-standing smooth-sailing diplomatic rapport existing between America & Nigeria.He noted that the relation is particularly strong in the areas of economy , military support / training agreements, education, health, technology, agriculture, trade, commerce , investments, oil & gas and allied spheres of human capital development, over the years.
For other African countries yet to offer their voting support to Nigeria’s Senator Shagaya, an expert in military traditions and Intelligence gathering, cited the charitable example by Nigeria when she whole-heartedly supported Ghana’s Ambassador Kofi Annan’s candidature for the position of Secretary-General position at the United Nations.A moved that became a huge success. He equally urged all African countries to emulate Nigeria’s example.
