Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been appointed to the board of directors of social media platform, Twitter.
She served under President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003 to 2006 and President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015.
Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey announced the appointment on the platform. “We’re adding Ngozi (@NOIweala) and Bob (@authorzoellick) to the Twitter board. Welcome! Sadly we’re also saying farewell to our friend Marjorie (@marjscar). She’s been an amazing advocate for journalists everywhere, and pushed us constantly to better inform people. Thank you M.
We’re adding Ngozi (@NOIweala) and Bob (@authorzoellick) to the Twitter board. Welcome! Sadly we’re also saying farewell to our friend Marjorie (@marjscar). She’s been an amazing advocate for journalists everywhere, and pushed us constantly to better inform people. Thank you M.
— jack (@jack) July 19, 2018
WhatsApp limit forwarded messages, number of people in groups
Accepting the appointment, She tweeted the news of her appointment, saying she was “excited” to work on a platform that connects people and ideas.
Excited to work with @Jack and an incredible team on the Board of Twitter, a global platform that is such a strong connector of people and ideas.
— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) July 19, 2018
Twitter, like other Silicon Valley companies, has been criticised for not being inclusive enough.
With Mrs Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment, Twitter’s 10-member board now has three women, two of whom are black.
Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister and also as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
She was the first female to hold both positions. During her first term as Minister of Finance under president Obasanjo’s Administration, she spearheaded negotiations with the Paris Club of Creditors that led to the wiping out of US$30 billion of Nigeria’s debt, including the outright cancellation of US$18 billion.
In 2003 she led efforts to improve Nigeria’s macroeconomic management including the implementation of an oil-price based fiscal rule where revenues accruing above a reference benchmark oil price were saved in a special account, “The Excess Crude Account” which helped to reduce macroeconomic volatility.
She also introduced the practice of publishing each state’s monthly financial allocation from the Federal Government of Nigeria in the newspapers. This action went a long way in increasing transparency in governance.
With the support of the World Bank and the IMF to the Federal Government of Nigeria, she helped build an electronic financial management platform-the Government Integrated Financial Management and Information System (GIFMIS), including the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), helping to curtail corruption in the process.
As at 31 December 2014, the IPPIS platform for example had eliminated 62,893 ghost workers from the system and saved the Nigerian government about $1.25 billion in the process.
Okonjo-Iweala was also instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s in 2006.
