President Muhammadu Buhari has nominated the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This was seen in a tweet posted by the Presidential aide on Digital and New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi, in the early hours of Friday, June 5, 2020.

In the statement, Ogunlesi said that the current Director-General of the intergovernmental organization, Roberto Azevedo, is stepping down from his position on August 2020, a year ahead of the end of his tenure.

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Azevedo, who has been the head of the WTO since 2013, is stepping down at this critical period of global economic crisis and the trade war between the United States of America and China. The WTO head said this is the best way to avoid my chaos at the alliance, which has witnessed attacks from US President, Donald Trump.

This means that the election that was earlier scheduled for 2021 when his tenure was supposed to expire might be coming up much earlier for a new four-year term.

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Tolu Ogunlesi in his statement said, ”President Muhammadu Buhari has nominated Okonji-Iweala as Nigeria’s candidate for the position of the Director-General of World Trade Organization. DG Azevedo is stepping down in August 2020, a year earlier, so the election of the new DG, originally scheduled for 2021, may take place much earlier”.

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President @MBuhari has nominated @NOIweala as Nigeria’s candidate for the position of DG of @wto.

DG Azevedo is stepping down in August 2020, a year early, so the election of a new DG, originally scheduled for 2021, may take place much earlier.

— tolu ogunlesi (@toluogunlesi) June 4, 2020

Details later…

According to a monitored report, President Buhari withdrew the candidacy of Nigeria’s permanent representative to WTO, Yonov Frederik Agah, for the same position.

The Bureau of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB), has agreed to authorize an independent review of the report of the ethics committee of the bank’s board of directors on the allegations levied against the President of the Bank, Akinwumi Adesina.

This was contained in a communique which was released and signed by the Chairperson of the Bureau of Board of Governors, Ms Niale Kaba, after the meeting of the bureau board of governors on June 4, 2020, with respect to the complaints against the President of the bank.

In taking the decision, the Bureau agreed that AfDB’s ethics committee performed its role on this matter in accordance with the applicable rule under resolution B/BG/2008/11 of the board of governors and that the Chairperson of the Bureau of Board of Governors performed her role in accepting the findings of the ethics committee in accordance with the said resolution.

READ MORE: AfDB’s Akinwumi Adesina hits back, denies allegations against him

The bank’s board of governors in its statement said, ‘’Based on the views of some Governors on the matter and the need to carry every Governor along in resolving it, the Bureau agrees to authorize an independent review of the report of the ethics committee of the board of governors relative to the allegations considered by the ethics committee and the submissions made by the President of the Bank Group thereto in the interest of due process.

‘’The independent review shall be conducted by a neutral high calibre individual with unquestionable experience, high international reputation and integrity within a short time period of not more than two to four weeks maximum, taking the Bank group’s electoral calendar into account.

‘’The Bureau agrees that, within a three to six months period and following the independent review of the ethics committee report, an independent comprehensive review of the implementation of the bank’s group whistleblowing and complaints handling policy should be conducted with a view to ensuring that the policy is properly implemented, and revising it where necessary, to avoid situations of this nature in the future.’’

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Following the allegations of unethical conducts, questionable appointments and contract awards by a group of whistleblowers and the subsequent clearance of all charges by the AfDB’s ethics committee, the United States Government, who is the largest shareholder outside Africa, asked for an independent probe of those allegations.

The US treasury secretary questioned the integrity of the committee’s process as well as the internal processes of the bank.

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Adesina, a few days ago, met with President Muhammadu Buhari, where he assured of the country’s support towards his travails and his second term bid for the Presidency of the multilateral institution.

As part of signs that the global oil market is moving closer to rebalancing, Nigerian Bonny light price against earlier predictions, surged closer to $40, as it closed at $37.57 per barrel mark, up by 5.57% on Wednesday.

This is coming against the backdrop of a decline in crude oil inventory by 483,000 barrels for the week ending May 29, as estimated by the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday, and signs that OPEC+ producers are close to agreeing on a short extension of their historic deal to cut output.

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According to data from oilprice, the Brent crude was sold for $39.79 per barrel. The American WTI dropped to $36.79 per barrel.

Meanwhile, Russia and some other OPEC+ member countries are pushing for an extension by a month or 2 of the current output cut of 9.7 million barrels per day beyond June. This is within the 1-3 months’ extension that Saudi Arabia is pushing for.

(READ MORE:Crude oil prices rally as investors remain optimistic about oil production cut)

Either way, the market likes the idea of more cuts, with the understanding that going through with the earlier agreed output cut after June, will not be enough to draw down the global oil glut that is negatively affecting prices and building up inventories.

Analysts had predicted an inventory build of over 3 million barrels, and last week, the API had predicted a crude oil inventory of 9.731 million barrels. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that the inventory was going to be up by 7.9 million barrels by last week.