One of America’s most influential newspapers, the New York Times, has yesterday affirmed that Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala was best qualified for the World Bank plum job.
The New York Times assessment comes just as President Goodluck Jonathan, also yesterday, endorsed the anchor woman of his Economic Management Team and Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for Presidency of the World Bank, saying she alone has the best credentials for the job.
The paper which however agreed that other contenders, including a high-achieving America doctor, possessed sterling qualities, stated that Iweala took the lead on merit.
According to the paper, “Advancing merit over politics, and given the current global economic and social challenges, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister, is the best fit for the presidency of the World Bank, the paper, stated, even as the influential newspaper praised President Obama’s nominee for the same job, Jim Yong Kim, as an “inspired choice.”
The New York Times however questioned the norm that allows presidents of the World Bank to be Americans, just as it wondered why the headship of the International Monetary Fund traditionally goes to Europeans. The New York Times described such development as antiquated and needed replacement with ‘a merit-centered consideration.’
The paper noted that, “The new World Bank president must also tackle broader issues of economics and growth, and manage the prickly political leaders who are the bank’s overseers. That is why the bank board must take a serious look at Dr. Kim’s strongest challenger, Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister.
“Nevertheless, a merit-based consideration should not exclude qualified Americans,” the paper stated, but even as much, “neither should it guarantee them a job” in a world where emerging economies contribute a significant share to global growth, and are “rightly demanding a greater say in decision-making,” the paper argued.
Yong Kim is a South Korean-born medical doctor and president of Ivy League Dartmouth College of whom the paper admitted, “has a stellar reputation as a global health expert.”
Whereas, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has already attracted strong endorsements from publications at the cutting edge of global financial journalism like The Economist, and the Financial Times, this new endorsement by the respected and perhaps biggest leading newspaper of the Western world cannot be missed or ignored by the bank’s board that will consider it ats huge and certainly critical in the final tally of who gets the top bank job.