Part 2 - To The Women Who’s Shoulders We Stand On

When we celebrate women of great pomp, courage, resilience and success, we cannot look over the person of Dr Oby Ezekwesili.

Dr Ezekwesili is strong proof that education can make a great difference in the life of a girl child as she has a long line of school certificates and accreditations that brought her to where she is now.

She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a master's degree in International Law and Diplomacy from the University of Lagos, and a Master of Public Administration degree from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She also trained with the firm Deloitte and Touche and qualified as a chartered accountant.

Dr Ezekwesili served as the Federal Minister of Solid Minerals and later as the Federal Minister of Education. Subsequently, she served as the vice president of the World Bank's Africa region from May 2007 to May 2012.

She was a co-founder of Transparency International, serving as one of the pioneer directors of the global anti-corruption body based in Berlin, Germany.

Dr Ezekwesili started in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration as the pioneer head of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (aka Due Process Unit). It was in this position that she earned the sobriquet of "Madam Due Process" for her work of leading a team of professionals to sanitize the public procurement and contracting processes at the federal level in Nigeria.

She was the architect of the Bureau for Public Procurement legislation, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) legislation, and the new Minerals and Mining legislation during her six-and-a-half-year stint in government.

In June 2005, she was appointed Minister of Solid Minerals (Mines and Steel), where she led a reform program that led to Nigeria's global recognition as a credible mining investment destination. She was also the Chairperson of the NEITI and led the first national implementation of the global standards and principles of transparency in the oil, gas and mining sector. Impressive, isn't it?

In June 2006, she was appointed the Federal Minister of Education, a post she held until she took up a World Bank appointment in May 2007. While in government, she led the restructuring and refocusing of the Education Ministry for the attainment of Education for All (EfA) targets and Millennium Development Goals. She also introduced public-private partnerships for education service delivery, revamped the Federal Inspectorate Service as an improved quality assurance mechanism, and introduced transparency and accountability mechanisms for better governance of the budget.

In March 2007, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz announced the appointment of Dr Ezekwesili as vice president for the Africa region starting on 1 May 2007.

In 2012, she completed her stint as vice president for the World Bank's Africa region.

These and many more are the achievements of Dr Oby Ezekwesili who is our spotlight for the month. We celebrate these living icons as best as we can and we hope that new generations of young girls will emulate this greatness.