The Minister of Industry,Trade and Investment,Niyi Adebayo, said Nigeria is optimistic that the election for the position of the Director General of the World Trade Organisation,(WTO) will be in favour of the country in view of the pedigree of Nigeria’s candidate,Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and support from other member nations.
Adebayo who spoke to newsmen in Abuja said Iweala’s success in the first round of voting showed that she is well respectted and has the support of many countries.
According to him, some of the candidates dropped out because they didn’t get support from other countries and that he has spoken to countries and there is no doubt Iweala as a strong candidate,well respected would emerge as the Director General of the WTO.
” The people who dropped out, dropped out because they didn’t have support from other countries .So we feel that we are on track.We believe that we have a very strong candidate with counties that we have spoken to, and spoken to my colleagues in many of the countries. I have also spoken to ambassadors of many countries.And many of them have professed their support for our candidate We are looking good and we are very optimistic that at the end of the day our candidate should emerge as the Director General of the WTO “.he said.
At the moment, Mexico Moldova, and Egypt are out of the race leaving Nigeria ,Kenya,Korea,Uk and Saudi Arabia for the second round.of the elections.
Iweala if elected, will become the first African to head the World Trade Organisation,an intergovernmental governmental Organization formed on January 1,1995 as a forum for trade liberalization, trade agreement and settlement of trade disputes under set rules.
The Organisation comprising 164 membership states is domiciled in Geneva, the Swiss capital.
