Stella Okotete, aged 39, is going to be a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Not because there is an absence of opposition to her nomination and now certain confirmation, but because lazy gossip and lies cannot set fire to decades of unparalleled excellence.
Her rise to the Federal Executive Council, the foremost organ of the country’s executive branch of government, caps a norm-defying career. She, at once, shattered a glass ceiling for women and young people, highlighting the breathtaking pace of progress the country is recording under the reformative leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
For agents of retrogression uncomfortable with the wind of progressive change, it is a rise too fast. Especially for a “small girl” unwilling to surrender herself to corrupting influences disguised as “godfathering”. So they sought to undo it. As soon as her name was announced as a ministerial nominee, they swore to prevent her emergence and halt the country’s transition to a governance era defined by competence and records. But while they were armed with lies and pen-for-hire quacks masquerading as journalists, Stella Okotete had documented evidence and a plethora of witnesses on her side.
At the Tuesday ministerial screening conducted by the 10th Senate, she rolled out her records and put paid to the cheap blackmail of her detractors. To the manufactured and baseless disputes about her educational records, she provided a comprehensive background of her academic journey from the Federal Government Girls’ College in Benin through the Rivers State College of Arts and Science where she obtained a law diploma, and then Benson Idahosa University in Benin where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Diplomacy. To the lie that she didn’t serve the nation as required of every university graduate, she proudly announced the address of the firm where she completed her NYSC in the city of Benin in Edo State, in case her obviously idle detractors or other curious citizens cared to confirm.
Importantly too, she proudly listed her remarkable achievements as a professional and as a politician. In her role as the Executive Director of Nigeria Export-Import (NEXIM) Bank, a job she took in 2017 with the mandate to promote economic diversification and grow non-oil export revenue, Stella took the bank’s operating profit from a negative of over 8 billion naira to a plus of nearly 4 billion naira in 2021. Through careful reforms and a change of institutional mindset, she cut the bank’s non-performing loans from 94% in 2017 to 29% as of December 2021.
The total asset of the bank grew by over 200% and an additional funding of over 100 billion naira was attracted within the same time period. To describe these feats and their importance in simpler terms, Stella Okotete essentially helped cushion the effects of the vagaries of the oil sector and its economically hurtful fluctuations on the country by supporting the growth of non-oil businesses such as agriculture and services to rake in revenue required to meet financial obligations of government and position the country for future economic growth. Critics often point out that Nigeria has little else to sell to the world, apart from oil. Stella Okotete has strived valiantly to change that grim status quo since 2017 and with tremendous success.
On the political front, from a young Councillor in Delta State, she rose to the APC’s National Working Committee as National Women leader, leaving in her trail hundreds of children and young women who found their voice and now fill important leadership positions because of her mentorship and generous investments. She established the Progressive Young Women Forum (PYWF) to address poor representation of women in politics and leadership and has through the organization groomed some of the brightest young female leaders the country has recorded in the last decade.
She proved to the Senate that she is a performer with a record of performance. Not just empty rhetorics even if her great oratory skill adds to her mystique. They had no choice but to ask her to take the famous bow and go. She was ushered out of the chambers with a loud ovation, straight into the Federal Executive Council. She is a woman diligent in her business who will now stand before kings, not mean men who deal in gossip and lies. It is a truth affirmed by the scriptures. Stella is clear.
Best outside contribution by Peter Adeshina