Likening Nigeria to a household, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala held up a sponge cake
representing the Gross Domestic Product to an audience of amused
officials, as she sought to rebuff critics who say Nigeria’s
strong economic growth has failed to lift millions out of poverty.
She urged the country to focus on
the government’s plan to become one of the world’s top 20 economies by
2020, which she said would be crucial to solving its other problems like
high unemployment and poverty. According to her, it would mean doubling the current
growth rate to 13 percent.
Holding up a sponge with figurines of a family on
it, at a televised conference on Monday, the economy coordinating minister said, “having this cake does not mean that every problem in your household
is solved,"and swapping the sponge for a much bigger one, prompting a wave of
laughter, she added: “But you have one wife and three children and … if you have only this
cake you’re going to be suffering. You want this cake to grow.”
Reuters says foreign bond and equity investors are taking a growing
interest in Africa’s second biggest economy, and President Goodluck
Jonathan’s decision to bring Okonjo-Iweala back to Nigeria from her
World Bank job in 2011 was well received.
But she has had a mixed reception at home, with some politicians complaining she is too aloof and technocratic.
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