The Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Tuesday, met with President Bola Tinubu at presidential villa, Abuja, where she revealed that the president is not unaware of the pains Nigerians are undergoing at the moment.
Okonjo-Iweala, who was accompanied to the Villa by former
Minister of State for Health and minister-designate, Dr Mohammed Pate, however,
explained that her visit to Tinubu was not in her capacity as the WTO helmsman.
Speaking with newsmen, the former Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister for the Economy revealed that the crux of the meeting was
to work out modalities on how to help Nigeria alleviate the suffering of its
citizens.
“That’s what’s needed now, helping Nigerians to alleviate
the difficult conditions that they are in.”
She said that their conversation with the president centred
around formulating approaches aimed at job creation, foster women’s
empowerment, and bolster digital trade within Nigeria’s economy.
Her words, “This was not really an official WTO mission, but
we were able to engage with Mr President to talk about what are the kinds of
programmes that could be put in place to make sure that Nigerians are okay. We
had a conversation on trying to look at community and grassroots programmes
that can be put in place to create jobs for young people trying to support
women and children who are bearing the brunt of some of the suffering in the
country.”
She noted that the visit afforded them the opportunity to
also talk about investment for the longer term in the many other sectors in the
country including the pharmaceutical industry.
“We also talked about what type of support the World Trade
Organization can bring.
“We are already working in Nigeria with women in particular,
who own small and medium enterprises to try to help them upgrade the quality of
their products, whether it’s in the agricultural area, textiles, and in other
areas so that they can sell more internationally.
“We’re trying to help them with digital trade. The wave of
the future is digital trade. So, how do we train and empower Nigerian women and
small and medium enterprises throughout the country, create more jobs?
“That’s what’s needed now in Nigeria to alleviate these
difficult conditions that they are in. So, that is what we discussed with Mr
President and as the Director General of the World Trade Organization, we’re
going to try to do the most we can to support Nigerians at this particular
time.”
Also speaking, Pate, a former Chief Executive Officer of GAVI,
the global vaccine alliance, corroborated the remarks of the WTO Director
General, adding that Tinubu is actively working to ameliorate the suffering of
the citizens.
He assured that the current difficulty is transitory, noting
that the president is committed to all intervention measures that will bring
succour to the people.
Pate spoke on plans to promote grassroots programmes to
support women and youth as well as prioritising health particularly health
insurance, primary healthcare and hospital care.
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