By far the sharpest mind in President Goodluck Jonathan's cabinet since 2011 when she took up the job, Dr Okonjo-Iweala is serving hers second stint as finance minister. She had previously served in the cabinet of former president Olusegun Obasanjo between 2003 and 2007 but this time around, she had the added responsibility of being coordinating minister for the economy.
Credited with several reforms, including the consolidation of the country's banks as well as the publication of federal allocations to states, Dr Okonjo-Iweala has been widely praised as a reformer. Of late, however, she has been tainted by the corruption which has come to characterise the Jonathan administration as large sums of public funds have been repeatedly reported missing.
Recognising her contributions nonetheless, Yale University awarded her a Doctor of Humane Letters yesterday at its 2015 Commencement Ceremony in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr Okonjo-Iweala now becomes the second Nigerian in the university’s 314-year history to receive its highest honour after Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, received an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1980.
Conferring the award on Dr Okonjo-Iweala, Professor Peter Salovey, the university's president, said: "She is a brilliant reformer and dedicated public servant. The minister has spearheaded efforts to stabilise and grow Nigeria’s economy, battling widespread government corruption and creating greater fiscal transparency and discipline.”
Yale’s honorary doctoral degree is seen globally as a very important honour. Those who have received honorary degrees over the years are generally scholars, public servants, Nobel Prize winners and heads of states.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala was honoured alongside the chair of the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve System Janet Yellen, Beninoise singer and songwriter Angelique Kidjo, Professor and founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University Gayatari Chakravorty Spivak, Professor and director of the Starr Center for Human Genetics at Rockefeller University Jeffrey Michael Friedman and entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Dean Kamen, among others. Yale has in the past honoured a handful of other Africans such as Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
As finance minister in 2004, Dr Okonjo-Iweala and the economic team that she led, helped Nigeria obtain debt relief, wiping out $30bn of Paris Club debts, leading to a tripling of the growth rates. In her second coming as the coordinating minister for the economy, she has focused on building strong foundations and institutions critical for the survival and sustenance of the economy.
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