Iweala Quotes

Today, the European Union is busy transferring aid. If they can build infrastructure in Spain, roads, highways ... why do they refuse to use the same aid to build the same infrastructure in our countries? ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

On the bad days, there is no color. I know there are colors. I can see the colors, but the world looks gray. The sounds are muffled by a crackling web of static that sits behind my eyes and buzzes in my ears. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

I am remembering the soldier who are coming to my village and I am holding my machete closer. I am liking how it is feeling in my hand, like it is almost part of my body. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

I'm standing here saying that those who miss the boat now, will miss it forever. So if you want to be in Africa, think about investing. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I believe that when you find problems, you should also find solutions. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

No one can fight corruption for Nigerians except Nigerians. Everyone has to be committed from the top to the bottom to fight it. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

One in four sub-Saharan Africans is Nigerian, and it has 140 million dynamic people - chaotic people - but very interesting people. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Africans ... their tired. They're tired of being the subject of everybody's charity and care. We are grateful, but we know that we can take charge of our own destinies if we have the will to reform. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Nigeria, with the oil sector, had the reputation of being corrupt and not managing its own public finances well. So what did we try to do? We introduced a fiscal rule that de-linked our budget from the oil price. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

You cannot unsee what has been seen once the veil is lifted, Reverend Olumide says in church. We cannot return to the garden of Eden. When I meet with him he says I need to confront my fears, that the devil torments us with that which scares us most. So, I cross the line between the blue hallways tiles and the white locker-room floor and navigate my way to locker umber thirty-two. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

Educating our young girls is the foundation for Nigeria's growth and development. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I'm walking walking walking to where the sun is setting. I'm looking at it and wanting to catch it in my hand and to be squeezing until color are dripping out from it forever. That way everywhere it is always dark and nobody is ever having to see any of the terrible thing that is happening in this world. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

I am fearing because I am seeing that the only way not to be fighting is to die. I am not wanting to die. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

[Africa] is a continent of many countries, not one country. If we are down to three or four conflicts, it means that there are plenty of opportunities to invest in stable, growing, exciting economies where there's plenty of opportunity. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

From 1967 to '70, Nigeria fought a war - the Nigeria-Biafra war. And in the middle of that war, I was 14 years old. We spent much of our time with my mother cooking. For the army - my father joined the army as a brigadier - the Biafran army. We were on the Biafran side. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Mobile phone technology can help to bring financial services to the 80 percent of African women who do not have a bank account and bolster the growth of the world's poorest continent. It's not just about empowering women, it's about economic growth. Unless we can make access to finance easier for women in their businesses, we will be missing out on a significant portion of growth within our economies ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I'm still me, I want to say to him, your son, but that would hardly help if I am currently everything wrong with the world. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

When it comes to doing my job, I keep my ego in my handbag. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

My father and I look up and then at each other. I can feel my heart separate from the rest of my body. I want to hand it to frothing old man in front of me and say, take it. It's yours, because it has always been yours, if not for your sperm, your food, and the school fees that you pay on my behalf, then who and where would I be? Nothing. I am because you are. I say nothing. Each word I search for flies from my brain before I can send it off my tongue. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

I'm trying to tell you that there's a new wave on the continent. A new wave of openness and democratization in which, since 2000, more than two-thirds of African countries have had multi-party democratic elections. Not all of them have been perfect, or will be, but the trend is very clear. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet. And the best way to do that is by helping create jobs. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or 'Trouble Woman.' It means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Are you lost if you know where you're going-- just not how to get there? ~ Uzodinma Iweala

I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water ... what it means when people are poor and don't have enough to eat. It's not enough to say you know about poverty. You have to live it. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

so we were playing all this game then and thinking that to be a soldier was to be the best thing in the world because gun is looking so powerful and the men in movie are looking so powerful and strong when they are killing people,but I am knowing now that to be a soldier is only to be weak and not strong, and to have no food to eat and not to eat whatever you want, and also to have people making you do thing that you are not wanting to do and not to be doing whatever you are wanting which is what they are doing in movie. But I am only knowing this now because I am soldier now. ~ Uzodinma Iweala

If we save people from HIV/AIDS, if we save them from malaria, it means they can form the base of production for our economy. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

I'm late, the kind of late that suggest I have no regard for the emotional health of my Nigerian parents who probably think I've been kidnapped by the enemies of progress. ~ Uzodinma Iweala