World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has linked the 2012 kidnapping of her mother to an investigation into an alleged $2.4 billion petrol subsidy fraud that she says she uncovered as Nigeria’s finance minister.
By: Tunji Okunlola
Her mother, Kamene Okonjo, was abducted from her home in Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, in December 2012. In a recent Bloomberg interview, Okonjo-Iweala said the kidnappers told her that her mother would be freed only if she resigned and left the country. She served as finance minister under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015.
How the probe began
She said the investigation started after her office noticed a sharp rise in claims from petrol importers. She asked Jonathan to approve an audit of the accounts. “He said, yes, go ahead. And we found about $2.4 billion worth of fraud. So, we refused to pay,” she said.
According to her, the abduction happened soon after the decision to withhold the disputed payments. “I was told (by the kidnappers) that for her to be released, I should resign and leave the country,” she recalled.
“The worst in my life”
Okonjo-Iweala called the episode one of the most traumatic of her life. She said her mother was held in a forest and escaped one night. “She’s still alive. She’s 96 now,” she said.
“It was a terrible, terrible five-day ordeal. I think the worst in my life,” she said. She added that she never imagined her parents could be targeted in this way: “I never dreamt my parents could ever be touched in this way, that people would be that evil.”
Her father’s advice
She said she considered resigning to secure her mother’s release, but her father urged her not to give in. “He said, ‘We don’t give in to blackmail’. And he said, ‘You’ve got to carry on. You’ve got to go to work’,” she recalled.
Her account offers a personal view of the risks she says she faced while pursuing the inquiry into alleged irregularities in petrol subsidy payments.
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