"I WAS in a bit of a shock," were the words, of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former World Bank vice president and Board Secretary, in reaction to her appointment as Nigeria's Minister of Finance, by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003. Prior to her appointment to the cabinet, she had served as an adviser since 2000 when she took a leave from her Washington DC World Bank office to put Nigeria's then chaotic foreign debt portfolio in shape.

As Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala, was driven by a sense of anger. "It is a sense of anger that drives me. Anger that this country (and) Nigerians that I know are being maligned by a small percentage," she once told journalists. "You have to do something to clean this up. You can't always look up to other people do to it. The fight begins with you," she had added. If Okonjo-Iweala was shocked at her appointment, many were equally shocked by her removal from the strategic position as Minister of Finance, for redeployment to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a move considered by many observers as very "unstrategic," considering her background.

Transparency International, two years ago, ranked Nigeria second most corrupt country in the world. Bangladesh was number one. Oil money was often stolen outright by political leaders and end up in foreign bank accounts where such funds add no value, whatsoever, to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. The Harvard, M.I.T., trained economist was thus faced with a formidable hydra-headed monster of corruption, which slows economic growth, spreads poverty among the majority of the people on the altar of greed among the political elite.

Cutting government spending, enthronement of transparency in public finance management, fighting corruption and, above all, the $18 billion debt relief deal which helped Nigeria to exit the Paris Club of creditors, were some of the achievements for which Okonjo-Iweala would ever be remembered. Until Wednesday, June 21, no one ordinarily could have imagined that Obasanjo would remove Okonjo-Iweala from her job at the Federal Ministry of Finance. In fact, up till 6. 00 p.m the previous day, she was at a press conference battling to settle the dust raised by the National Assembly and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Allocation Commission, RMAFC, over alleged unauthorized withdrawals from the Excess Crude Oil Account.

Okonjo-Iweala was replaced with Mrs Nenadi Esther Usman, who until then, was the Minister of State for Finance. Mrs. Usman, a 39-year old from Jere, in Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State holds a Bachelor of Science in Geography from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (1986) and a post graduate diploma in Management from University of Jos. She became Minister of State in 2003 and has worked closely with Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, ever since. The Southern Kaduna lady who combines the qualities of humility and firmness had severally said she had learnt a lot from her predecessor, an indication that she could hold her own in the current reform waves blowing across the socio-economic spheres, particularly at the federal level.

Some have doubted Mrs. Usman capacity to "wear the shoes" of her predecessor and hold the economy together. In her capacity as chairman of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, between 2003 and last week, Mrs. Usman employed political tact and diplomacy to ensure that the volatile issue of revenue sharing among the three tiers of government did not degenerate into acrimony. Even when there were disagreements, such were amicably resolved. The current sharing formula as modified by the Presidency in April, 2002 after the Supreme Court ruling on the Resource Control case stands at 54.68 per cent for the Federal Government; state governments, 24.72 per cent; and local governments 20.60 per cent. While she held sway over the FAAC, Mrs. Usman ensured that in addition to the monthly allocations, special releases from the excess on crude oil sales account, proceeds from GSM licences and second national telecommunications operators licences were distributed to all beneficiarie s of the account.

Mrs. Usman, it was, who headed the Customs reform targeted at cleaning up the service of corrupt officers and putting in place of automated clearing points for increased efficiency in conjunction with the Presidential Committee on Ports Decongestion, on which she also served.

It was the Customs Service re-organisation that threw up the current comptroller-general, Mr. Jacob Buba Gyang. Probably, if any group or institution gained immensely from the years of Mrs. Usman's position as Minister of State, the Customs and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) did.

For many years, the two revenue collection bodies called for independent, direct funding from the federally collected revenue, to no avail. However, within the period Mrs. Usman was Minister of State for Finance, she worked with Okonjo-Iweala and the duo secured approval for 7 per cent and 4 per cent out of total collections by Customs and FIRS, respectively, to ensure adequate funding of their activities.

The Challenges

Okonjo-Iweala's redeployment came at a time the National Assembly was querying the withdrawal of funds from the Excess Crude oil Account without express approval from the legislature. The former Minister of Finance, tried to put the matter to rest, as, according to her, there were no arbitrary withdrawals from the account. The one year left for the Obasanjo government to vacate office is critical to the nation's body polity.

It is even more critical for the economy. Election years are usually nightmares for economy managers in this country. What with huge election expenditures which normally leads to excess liquidity in the system, raising inflation and eroding the value of the Naira at the Foreign Exchange Market. From above 20 per cent rate, in 1999, inflation has been brought down to 12 .6 (according to CBN Report for April 2006). Sustaining a falling inflation record will be very tasking for the new finance minister.

The challenges before Mrs. Usman who had an astronomical rise from a classroom teacher to become commissioner in three ministries, before moving to the federal cabinet are thus, enormous.

Cordial relationship

She has to ensure a cordial relationship between the executive and the legislature which have related, over the years with mutual suspicion. Many bills on how to institutionalise the on-going transparency in conducting government business and curbing corruption are with the federal legislature, waiting to be passed. In particular, the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, the Public Procurement Bill and those on Tax Reforms must be passed, if the on-going economic reforms are to be sustained beyond the Obasanjo administration. Time is not on the side of the administration and the earlier Mrs. Usman focuses on these, the better.

Probably, the most crucial job over which the minister cannot afford to fail Nigerians deals with protecting the large foreign reserves from being plundered. From $4.99 billion in May 1999, Obasanjo's government consistently built the reserve to an impressive level of $34.09 billion at the end of May.

Mrs. Usman will be under immense pressure from state governors, and even hawks in the executive to draw down the funds to enable them take as much as possible before leaving office. Call it a litmus test. Already, some observers have concluded that the President could have removed Okonjo-Iweala from Finance in order to ensure unfettered access to the foreign reserves.

It is argued that Okojo-Iweala could constitute a blockade when such moves are to be taken and such had to be moved out of the way. One expects, and honestly too, that Mrs. Usman will prove those who hold such views wrong by reporting to Nigerians, each month, the state of the account.

She has to continually keep the books open. To do otherwise will have dire consequences. It is only good to remind her that political opponents of the president are watching, very closely, for the slightest opportunity to show to the world that he and his team have been deceiving the world and Nigerians, in particular.

They can obtain details of withdrawals from the nation's foreign reserves or any account for that matter. This is no time for UTD (under the table deals).