The Vice President for Africa Region at the World Bank, Ms Obiageli Ezekwesili, would be leaving that post in May this year, according to the World Bank President, Bob Zoellick, in a statement from the Washington DC headquarters of the organisation .
Although Ezekwesili had completed a 4-year tenure last year, and was already hoping to return to her family in Nigeria, she was asked to stay another year by Zoellick, who commended her contributions as the bank’s leading official on Africa since 2007.
Ezekwesili,will be returning to Nigeria to play a role in engaging African leaders and governments towards the attainment and sustenance of good governance and the provision of sound policy tools and agenda for the development of the continent.
She has been known to have actively supported African countries in pursuing core development goals and often praised for her personal zeal and knowledge in advancing a series of policy options for the continent’s leadership, causing even the Economist magazine to recently review its previous doomsday prediction on Africa, and declare that Africa was indeed rising based on the upward growth rate in the continent.
The World Bank statement also referenced how she built a strong team across the range of the bank’s work: Infrastructure and human development, agricultural production and productivity, private sector development, economic reforms to overcome poverty and governance and accountability.