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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of resisting negative stereotypes and the potential for economic growth.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala highlights the need for Nigeria to challenge its reputation for corruption and to actively work towards economic progress. The quote reflects a belief that nations can shape their identities and futures by rejecting harmful perceptions and taking proactive steps towards improvement.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about national development at a conference.
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.
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.
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.
When you save the life of anyone, a farmer, a teacher, a mother, they are contributing productively into the economy.
Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics.
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.
To change the printout of the body, you must learn to rewrite the software of the mind.
From the pain come the dream_x000D_ From the dream come the vision_x000D_ From the vision come the people_x000D_ From the people come the power_x000D_ From this power come the change.
There are no moments you have frozen in amber. It's moving, it's changing, so appreciate what's good about right now and be ready for what's next.
Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the world we were young in.
When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
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