Book Review — Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Two days ago, I finished Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines. Ngozi was Nigeria’s former finance minister and currently the lead candidate for the Director-General position at the World Trade Organization. The book was published in 2018.

The book offers an interesting insider account of what it means to work as a senior official in the Nigerian government. This exposé details her time during the Goodluck Jonathan era which was from 2011 to 2015. During this period, she was not just the Finance Minister but also held a special position as the Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME) — the first of its kind in the country.

The first thing that hits you in this book is the level of impunity in the Nigerian government. It just seems to me that there are forces whose life mission is to ensure that Nigeria is kept in perpetual underdevelopment. You will see as I go on.

The book starts with the story of the kidnapping of the author’s mother. Her mother was kidnapped and held for five days by people she suspected to have been sent by oil marketers whom she admits she had a big fallout with and those involved in the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Program (SURE-P) who (wrongly) felt she was responsible for their delayed…