The Heads of State and Governments of the 15 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have approved the candidature of Nigeria former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) apex job.
Their position was made known in a statement signed by President of Niger, who is also ECOWAS President, Mahamadou Issoufou.
The commission also appealed toAfrican countries as well as non-African countries to show their support to the former Managing Director (Operations) of the World Bank.
The statement reads in part: “Since the creation of the WTO on January 1, 1995, which is a successor to the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) established on January 1, 1948, no African has assumed the position of Director-General of the organisation,” they added.
Theparrot.ng had reported that Okonjo Iweala’ s nomination for the Director General of WTO was disapproved by the African Union (AU).
She was said to have violated Rule (11), 1, 2 and 3, Rule 12 and Rule 15(3) of the rules of procedure of the committee on candidatures within the International System of the AU as well as Council’s Decisions Ex CI 1072 (XXXV), Ec CI Dec 1090 (XXXVI) and Assembly Dec 795 (XXXIII).
