There is no doubt that pastor mathew Ashimolowo is a best product of Nigeria that had made indeliable marks both locally and internationally.

Mathew Ashimolowo is the Snr. Pastor Kingsway International Christian Centre, London

My background
I was born in the city of Zaria, in Northern Nigeria March 17, 1952. My Dad was in the Army….I was trying to read to do A’ Levels; as in those days, we did our A’ level at the age for twenty or twenty something, so that I could go to the Nigerian Defence Academy.

But while I was doing that, I found myself drawn more to the Bible. I couldn’t sit for the A’ level exam because I couldn’t study for it. Not long after that, an evangelist came to my church and asked a simple question. “You look like someone the Lord is calling for his ministry”….I went to Bible School in 1974.

How I started my ministry
Well, I always counted my years in the Ministry from the day I stepped into the Bible School. That was from January 1974, because that was when I became a Minister of the gospel. But then the Bible School helped in teaching, in shaping, in training…I graduated in 1976 and reported at the Foursquare Gospel Church, Shomolu, Lagos, Nigeria and became the Assistant Pastor.

Within four years, I became the Resident Pastor of that local Church. Within those four years, I became a Speaker for different Universities and Colleges at the early stage of my ministry. I was just getting calls to be a Speaker. That was how the Ministry began. And the Lord began to bless my work, and I was an Assistant Pastor.

Starting KICC in London
I was a Pastor in Nigeria between 1974 and 1984. The denomination I was working under decided they were getting a lot of letters from their members abroad saying they want a Church established in London. They decided they needed a Pastor. So I came really as a missionary
I came with an employment visa as a Missionary sent by that Church denomination.

My desire was to do Masters Programme in Canada; in fact, I had paid School fees for my Masters programme in Canada. I had already done all my checks with the embassy to go and collect my visa when the denomination said I should forget about the Masters and come to London to be a Pastor of a Church they were starting.

So they sent me to London. I arrived London February 11, 1984 to take over 11 adults and three children. I started in London pasturing 11 adults and three children. So it all started in 1984 that this small group of people from Dalston and I became the Pastor.

Growth of KICC
The Church I met in 1984, I stopped Pastoring in 1992. I Pastored the Foursquare for eight years. And from 11 adults, six children to six hundred in total, but God began to speak to me that it was time to move but I did not understand.

So I kept quality time before the Lord. In fact, God spoke to me to start fasting for 75 days at the end of which I believe the Lord clearly spoke to me that the river He is about to give me is bigger that the one in which I was serving.

So I stepped out of the Church denomination, handed over the Church and started Kingsway International Christian Centre. Of course 200 adults from my previous work decided to be in my ministry and that was how KICC took off December 6, 1992 with 200 adults, 100 children and God began to bless the ministry.

By the time we were a year old, by September 1993, we were already thousand two hundred in capacity. By the time we were two years old, we were already 2,500. Our growth in the first five, six years is meteoric. So by the time we were six years old, we were already clocking 7000. So God blessed the work that started in September 1992.

I have preached in Portugal, Holland, Ghana, Nigeria, United States of America and France. I have without my physical presence in Zimbabwe.

I was on National Television in Ghana, before other preachers were allowed. I think I am proud to say I am the only one on Television in Malawi and through the God’s channel, we were in so many stations going to Israel, East Africa, some parts of the Mediterranean as far as Yemen and then into all of Europe.

Nigeria best product is proud to present Pastor chris oyakhilome, a branded Nigeria best product

Chris Oyakhilome
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
Born
Occupation	Televangelist, Author, Speaker, Preacher, life coach,
Spouse(s)	Anita Oyakhilome
Website Christ Embassy

Chris Oyakhilome (known popularly as "Pastor Chris") is a televangelist and founding president of Believers' LoveWorld Incorporated aka "Christ Embassy", a Christian organisation headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.

History

Pastor Chris was brought up in a strict Christian home, was born again at the age of 9 and started his ministry as a young undergraduate at the then Bendel State University (now "Ambrose Alli University") where he studied Architecture.

He is married to Pastor Anita Oyakhilome, the Director of the Christ Embassy International Office who also pastors Christ Embassy Churches in the United Kingdom, including her own chapter, Christ Embassy Docklands, in North Woolwich, London. They have two daughters.^{[citation needed]}.

Ministry and healing

Oyakhilome is the author of several bestselling books including "Rhapdsody of Realities" www.rhapsodyofrealities.org, which he co-authors with his wife, Pastor Anita. His teachings are also available in all audio and video formats. His book "How to receive your miracle and retain it?" is a anytime classic which displays the life of a Christian, his authority as a believer and all the possessions in the Kingdom of God that belongs to every believer.

Presiding over an ever-widening network of Christ Embassy Churches and campus fellowships on all five continents, Pastor Chris also pastors one of the largest congregations in Africa. He holds massive teaching and healing crusades with crowds of over 3.5 million in a single night's event.

In 2003, he pioneered the first 24-hour Christian Network from Africa to the rest of the world known as LoveWorld Christian Network. He is also the host of the television program “Atmosphere for Miracles”, which is oriented towards healing of physical and spiritual ailments and is broadcast on major television networks around the world.

Oyakhilome also has a Healing School as part of his ministry.

Philip Emeagwali one of the foremost best products of Nigeria that had made the world know that Nigerians are genius

• Philip Emeagwali, Mathematician / Computer Scientist

• Born: 23 August 1954
• Birthplace: Akure, Nigeria
• Best Known As: Nigerian-born supercomputing pioneer

Philip Emeagwali won the Gordon Bell supercomputing prize in 1989 for applying the power of networked computers to analysis of oil field reserves. The child of a poor Nigerian family, Emeagwali was largely self-taught in the sciences until 1974, when he won a scholarship to Oregon State University. During the 1970s and '80s he furthered his education at George Washington University and the University of Maryland, studying mathematics and environmental engineering. In the 1980s he worked on advanced formulas in networked computers, leading to the Gordon Bell prize. Emeagwali has won several other awards, including a 1998 Distinguished Scientist Award from the World Bank.

Emeagwali is married to microbiologist Dale Brown Emeagwali.

Personal Information

Born Philip Chukwurah Emeagwali on August 23, 1954, in Akure, Nigeria, son of Agatha and James Emeagwali; U.S. citizen; married Dale Brown, August 15, 1981; children: Ijeoma, Nnamdi, Onyeamechi.
Education: general certificate of education, University of London, 1973; B.S., mathematics, Oregon State University, 1977; M.S., civil engineering, George Washington University, 1981; engineering degree, ocean, coastal, and marine, George Washington University, 1986; M.A., applied mathematics, University of Maryland, 1986; Ph.D., scientific computing, University of Michigan, 1993.
Memberships: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Computer Society; Association for Computing Machinery; American Society of Civil Engineers; American Meteorological Society; National Technical Association, advisory board; American Physical Society; Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers; Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society; National Society of Black Engineers; National Society of Professional Engineers; Society of Technical Communication; American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; National Aeronautic Association; National Space Society; Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association; U.S. Parachute Association; Balloon Federation of America; National Air & Space Museum; Underwater Explorers Society.

Career

Various engineering duties, Maryland State Highway Administration, 1977-78; researcher, George Washington University, 1979-82; researcher, National Weather Service, University of Maryland, 1984-86; civil engineering and research mathematics duties, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 1986-87; researcher, University of Michigan, 1987-91; research fellow, University of Minnesota, Army High Performance Computing Research Center, 1991-93; independent consultant, 1993-. Concurrent positions: science consultant, PBS Futures TV Service, Meteorological Episode; advisory board member, National Technical Association.

Life's Work

Philip Emeagwali (pronounced eh-may-ah-gwah-lee) conducts research on Internet and supercomputing technologies, targeting applications that benefit petroleum engineering, weather forecasting, and global warming. His knowledge of massively parallel programming (using thousands of processors) was mostly self-taught, and in 1989, he performed the world's fastest computation of 3.1 billion calculations per second. Emeagwali used previously unaccepted technology that became the standard for supercomputers. Emeagwali also invented a method utilizing supercomputers that enabled oil companies to extract more petroleum from oil fields. The U.S. government had considered this problem among the twenty most difficult in the computing field.

Emeagwali was born August 23, 1954, to a 16 year-old-mother, Agatha Emeagwali, and 33-year-old father, James Emeagwali. The oldest of nine children, in a poor family, he was expected to do more than his share of housework and typically began his days at 4 a.m. When he was nine, Emeagwali s father cut back on his household chores so he have more time to do extra math work, including drills of solving 100 mathematics problems in his head every day. The daily drills transformed Emeagwali from an average student into a math whiz.

Emeagwali attended elementary and high school in Nigeria, West Africa, where his favorite subjects were mathematics and physics. During his pre-teens, Emeagwali was considered a human computing machine or calculating prodigy, according to Emeagwali.com. When he took a high school entrance exam at age 10, he got a perfect score on the math section. Officials accused him of fraud and disqualified him.

During his first year of high school, Emeagwali lived in an all-boys dorm of a British-run Catholic school. There, he studied English, French, Latin, literature, geography, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and biology. His favorite subject was math--"Mathematics, mathematics, and mathematics," he recalled on Emeagwali.com. Fifteen months into his high school education, 50,000 of the IgboBiafran army, a job that, he claimed, "helped me survive the war." tribe were killed in ethnic conflicts and the Emeagwalis, like most Igbos, fled to eastern Nigeria, where they lived in refugee camps during the civil war. Emeagwali dropped out of school and did not return for three years. The family "almost died from hunger," he said on Emeagwali.com. By the end of the war, he was a cook in the

Hated Computers

When the war ended, Emeagwali enrolled at Christ the King College in Onitsha, renown for its academic challenge. There were no school buses, so he walked two hours to and from school each day. He studied hard--harder than his classmates, he believed--and excelled, sometimes sleeping only three hours each night.

In 1974 Emeagwali traveled to the United States on scholarship to pursue his advanced studies. Some of his family members objected to the move, feeling he was too young to live on his own in a strange country. At age 19, he didn't even know how to dial a telephone. He studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy at Oregon State University; civil engineering at Howard University; civil, environmental, ocean, coastal, and marine engineering at George Washington University; applied mathematics at the University of Maryland; and scientific computing at the University of Michigan. In all, he earned five degrees. In 1981, Emeagwali married scientist and cancer researcher, Dale Brown.

When he first started working with computers in 1974, he claimed online at Emeagwali.com, "I hated them more than anybody in the world and knew I will never become a computer scientist." Because of the math drills his father made him do, Emeagwali was comfortable doing even complicated calculations in his head. Computers frustrated him, and he felt he did not need them. He resolved to become a mathematician, physicist, or astronomer--anything to avoid using computers. As his studies became more advanced and he was required to solve millions, billions, and trillions of calculations, he realized the benefit of computers and developed an interest in them, particularly in supercomputers.

Emeagwali claimed that racism inspired him to pursue supercomputeridle because no one had figured out how to program it. The lab chief was happy to find someone who was willing to try. In the seventies and eighties, few understood the science of programming supercomputers, so it was virtually impossible to get an education on the subject, according to Emeagwali on Emeagwali.com. He was essentially self-taught on computers. programming. He was granted access to a supercomputer owned by the U.S. Government. His access was revoked when the manager discovered he was black; the manager felt that Emeagwali would find programming a supercomputer too difficult. So Emeagwali tracked down a faster but little-used supercomputer, called the Connection Machine, which sat

In the 1980s Emeagwali arranged for 21 of his relatives to study and live in the United States. His eight siblings--who were eating one meal a day in Nigeria--all received college educations and went on to get good jobs. "It is important that we do not forget where we came from," he said on Emeagwali.com. "Success is not how much money you made for yourself. It is how many people you helped to become successful. Those of us who are on top [have] the responsibility to help those at the bottom because someday we might find ourselves at the bottom."

Set--and Broke--World Record

Emeagwali actually set the world's fastest computational record on the Connection Machine a year before it was published. Before announcing his results, he broke his own record several times. "Each time I broke my record," he recalled online at Emeagwali.com, "I would start screaming like a madman and people will run to my computer laboratory and inquire what went wrong." He used 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second, setting the record in 1989. His accomplishment gave way to other scientists' understanding the full capabilities of supercomputers and the benefit and practical use of linking several computers to communicate. For this, he is known as "[a] father of the Internet," according to CNNfyi.com. While on tour in Nigeria, President Bill Clinton praised Emeagwali as one of the great minds of the Information Age, according to White House transcripts, reiterating Emeagwali's nickname as the "Bill Gates of Africa."

For his record, Emeagwali earned the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of computing. Because of his engineering background, he was able to apply his technology to the petroleum industry. Massively parallel supercomputing enabled petroleum engineers to figure out how to recover more petroleum from oil fields. The problem was previously considered by the U.S. government to be one of the 20 most difficult problems in the computing field. According to Emeagwali, the process can save $400 million per oil field, which ultimately reduces the price of gas.

By 2001 Emeagwali turned his research to the structure of a global superbrain or "World Wide Brain" (WWB) he hoped would one day replace the World Wide Web (WWW). On Emeagwali.com, Emeagwali described the WWB as a digital superbrain that is [a] uniformly and intelligently connected international network of powerful computers that can take the Internet to the next level." He speculated about its use in personal computers and in building even more powerful supercomputers to more accurately forecast global weather or for nuclear arms simulations. He suggested that future generations might be able to scan their brains onto the WWB to "attain digital immortality." He considered the WWW to be the "larval stage" of the WWB and looked forward to its development into an "intelligent superorganism or 'brain of brains.'"

In addition to his major professional accomplishments, Emeagwali values the paths he has forged for minorities in technology. "In society," he said in an interview found online at Emeagwali.com, "my greatest accomplishment is that I have helped to destroy the stereotype that only whites are making contributions to cutting-edge science and technology." He is pleased when he hears he inspired other minorities to study computer science.

Awards

Gordon Bell Prize, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society, 1989; Distinguished Scientist Award, National Society of Black Engineers, 1991; Certificate of Recognition, Mobil Corp. and U.S. Black Engineer Magazine, 1991, 1992; Computer Scientist of the Year, National Technical Association, 1993; Distinguished Visitor, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Computer Society, 1993-96; Eminent Engineer, Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, 1994; International Man of the Year, Minority Technology Council of Michigan, 1994; Certificate of Appreciation Award, Science Museum of Minnesota, 1994.

This is father of nations, I mean the Abraham of our time and we glad to have such best product from the soil of Nigeria

Daddy Enoch Adeboye is no doubt one of the best Nigeria Product ever produced and that had made Nigerians proud locally and internationally.
. The General Overseer (G.O) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye is a man of God, who has been a tremendous blessing and inspiration to numerous people and drawn lost souls to salvation by the grace of God. Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye Christianity is on the up in Nigeria - and the word is being spread by the country's Pentecostal pastors. The doyen of them is is Pastor Enoch Adeboye, who introduced the hugely successful Holy Ghost Congress in the church in 1986. Today the congress is held monthly and is the largest regular gathering of Christians in Nigeria Although he leads one of the fastest growing Christian Churches in the country and probably in Africa today, majority of the flock he ably shepherds apart from calling him �Daddy� or �Father in the Lord� know little or nothing about him. This is probably because of a philosophy which seems to emphasize the power and glory of God in all that he does, rather than highlight his own personal achievements or contribution to the phenomenal growth of the church and the body of Christ. As he will say whenever commended, �Glory be to God�. In any case, the humility of Pastor Adeboye is so well-known and reflected in everything that surrounds him. It has also become the hallmark of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which he has led since he was appointed the head of the Church in 1981. This piece is an attempt to bridge the gap regarding necessary information about the General Overseer. The intention is that the member of his congregation as well as other Christians and Non-Christian alike can learn something about his life, humble beginnings, relationship with God, career and Christian ministry, and also that it is only through total dedication and commitment to God that man can achieve true holiness and elevation. Early Life and Career Pastor E.A. Adeboye was born on 2nd March 1942 at Ifewara in the present day Osun State. His parents (now of blessed memory) were indigenes of the town, which is about midway between Ilesha and Ondo towns. He had a strict Christian upbring which was engineered by a church going culture, which was the prevalent style of Christianity of those days. This church-going attitude gave him an appreciation of God, but made no extraordinary or outstanding Christian out of him. He under went primary and secondary education which were almost curtailed due to the problem of funds, barefooted and in tears. He recalls �for the first seventeen years of my life, I never had to wear shoes�. However, as God would have it, he survived against all odds to graduate from the University in 1967, at the age of 25. Between 1967 and 1975 he had added two more degrees, an M.Sc in hydrodynamics and a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics, and lectured at the University of Lagos and university of Ilorin. Before his lectureship at these Universities, the G.O had taught mathematics at two secondary schools viz: Okeigbo Grammar School, Okeigbo near Ondo and the Lagos Anglican Girls Grammar School, Surulere � Lagos. It would appear that his academic and professional career and achievement greatly prepared him for the office into which God was to call him later on. Becoming a Born-Again Christian His childhood Christian background had made him to appreciate God in the ordinary sense. However, it was not strict enough to preclude him from being an active young man engaging in all the perks to which a young lecturer and an educated man was �entitled�, even though he was married. Married in 1968 to his wife, Pastor (Mrs.) Folu Adeboye, the young couple was faced with the problem of recurrent caesarian section by which the wife had delivered their first two babies. Medical science had diagnosed that in view of the formation of pelvic bones, having babies by natural means was impossible and such advised against having further children. A solution had to be found. How his Christian background did not preclude him from trying out other areas outside of his Christian belief where solutions might be found. In any case, his Yoruba cultural background was not averse to syncretism. �Olorun ko ko aajo� his people are wont to say, that is �God (or belief in Him) is not opposed to native remedies�. The implication of which is that if prayers are not effective, the nature medicine-man is available. As part of the solution-seeking odyssey, the young University teacher and his wife were invited to the Redeemed Christian Church of god by his uncle, Rev. Chris Fajemirokun. Though leaded by unlettered men, the visibility of the power of God was not lost on the young couple. The church was then headed by Pastor Josiah Oluwafemi Akindayomi, the General Superintendent (GS), a man who did not have any formal education and spoke no English but his native Yoruba language. However, compared to his own educated mind, this man and the other men of God in the church were infinitely superior to him the knowledge and ways of god, and especially in their examination and exposition of the Bible. The sermons of the GS and those of his lieutenants were quite incisive, thought-provoking and soul-stirring. Here were men who despite their educational handicap would not compromise God�s standard. It was also here that he learnt that his way of life would lead him directly and unwaveringly in only one direction � HELL FIRE! He also learnt of the importance of looking up to Jesus as �the Author and Finisher of our faith� and the need �to cast all our cares upon Him�. So, when on 29th of July 1973, the altar call was made in the church for those who wanted to surrender their lives to Jesus, forsake their sinful ways, and become born again, the young man, who was to become the General Overseer of the church rushed forward, and in a remorseful show of penitence, gave his life unto Jesus! Reflecting later on his conversion he said, �something overwhelmed me that mighty: that I was close to hell and I didn�t know it. I suddenly realized that it is possible to have all the Ph.d�s in the world and still be on the losing side. I know all the formula but I did not know the one eternal life�. Growth and Development in the Lord Life took on new meaning for the new convert as he now immersed himself totally in the work of God. The zeal for God became a consuming passion, and everything concerning him began to take a new turn. The difference between life as a Church goer and as a born-again Christian and child of God became manifestly clear. He put God first in everything and became baptised by immersion in water in September 1973. As a worker in the church, he labored assiduously to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ through his personal life, evangelism, crusades etc. It was therefore no surprise when two years later on September 14, 1975, he was ordained with four other men of God, as a Pastor of the church. By this time, in view of his ability at interpreting, he had also become the English language interpreter to the General Superintendent, whose sermon was given in Yoruba language. To test their new faith in the Lord, and standing upon His promises, the Pastor�s wife who had been asked to stop bearing children became pregnant again. In the fullness of her term, she was delivered of a baby boy in 1978 at the church�s maternity center in Ebute-Metta, Lagos. The baby, which came against medical advice was delivered naturally by the Church�s midwives and was named OLUWADAMILARE. This miracle birth was a source of joy to the couple and they never tired of showing him off to friends and family as a physical manifestation of God�s faithfulness to those who serve him in spirit and in truth. A second miracle baby followed in 1982 through the same process of natural delivery, at the same maternity center of the church and by the same church midwives. The baby, named OLUWAGBEMILEKE became the final confirmation by the couple tot heir friends that with God nothing shall be impossible, and that when you are totally committed to and dependent on God, He will not let you down. At the Holy Ghost service of January 1997, the GO gave a personal testimony about total dependence on God, which related to his first miracle child. He recalled that when in 1981 the baby fell ill he prayed, fasted, spoke in tongues and generally travailed for the child to no effect. In fact, the condition of the child worsened as day after day, the baby refused to eat. On the tenth day, contrite and utterly broken, he now besought the face of the Lord, �Daddy, why have you refused to heal my child?� God replied him, �Since he is your child, you heal him yourself�. �Well in that case, recanted the man of God, �Daddy, heal your child�. And to the glory of God, in a moment of time the child had started playing and hungering for food. The Divine Call to Leadership The appointment of Pastor E.A. Adeboye to the leadership of the Redeemed Christian Church of God as the General Overseer had been revealed even before he became a member of the Church. The revelation had come to the General Superintendent of the Church in early70s that his successor would be �a young educated man�. In those days it was very rare to see young educated men, especially University graduates in Pentecostal Churches, which were considered to be too fanatical for their own liberal consideration of life. Rather whenever they choose to attend churches, they settled for the more conventional ones which did not quite infringe on their freedom to continue to revel in the passions of the flesh. Thus when the young University lecturer became a member of the church in 1973, Pastor Akindayomi (the GS) was able to recognize his successor in the spirit, as the person the Lord had spoken to him about. His burning zeal for the Lord, his readiness to learn, even from people far intellectually inferior to him, his intensive study of the words of God as contained in the Bible further went to confirm the veracity of the revelation received by the General Superintendent. Coincidentally, about five years before he became the General Overseer of the church, Pastor Adeboye himself had some revelation concerning the appointment. After sharing it with his wife, they had been in complete consternation, and had fervently prayed and fasted for God to allow the cup pass over them. However, only the will of God would prevail. One year before the event, he had another divine revelation concerning the appointment. Before passing on into glory, the General Superintendent had revealed to select groups of the Church�s Councils at different instances, the divine will of God regarding his successor. From human perception, it was hardly comprehensible that a young man aged thirty-something, who joined the church just �yesterday� will become the leader of the church, over quite elderly men in their late forties, fifties and sixties who had been in the church for between fifteen and twenty years before! He also revealed that those who might not wish to see the fulfillment of the wish of God will be removed by God himself without affecting the progress of the church. In any case, God has said that His ways are not our ways. When the General Superintendent was therefore called by God to higher service on 2nd November, 1980, most members of the Church knew on whose shoulders the mantle of Elijah would fall, the question was, accepting the will of god. The will of God eventually prevailed and on 21st of January 1981 (after only seven years of accepting Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior), Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, at the tender age of 38 was consecrated as the leader of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and chose the title, �General overseer�.

The Nigeria best Product called Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (born June 13, 1954) is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. And we are proud of her

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The Nigeria product that proof that what a man can do, a woman does it even better.

Finance Minister of Nigeria
In office July 2003 – June 2006
Foreign Minister of Nigeria
In office June 2006 – August 3, 2006
Born	June 13, 1954 (1954-06-13) (age 55) Delta State, Nigeria

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (born June 13, 1954) is the former Finance Minister and Foreign Minister of Nigeria, notable for being the first woman to hold either of those positions. She served as finance minister from July 2003 until her appointment as foreign minister in June 2006, and as foreign minister until her resignation in August 2006. Okonjo-Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.^{[1] [2]} On October 4 2007 she was appointed as Managing Director of the World Bank by World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

Education and personal life

Okonjo-Iweala is an Igbo^[3] from Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State where her father Professor Chukuka Okonjo is the Obi, or King, from the Umu Obi Obahai Royal Family of Ogwashi-Ukwu.

Dr. Ngozi Iweala-Okonjo was educated at Harvard University (A.B. Magna Cum Laude 1977) and earned her Ph.D. in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is married - her husband is from Umuahia, Abia State^[4] - and they have four children. The eldest, Onyinye Iweala received her Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology from Harvard University in 2008 and currently attends Harvard Medical School. Her son, Uzodinma Iweala, is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Beasts of No Nation (2005).'

Career

Prior to her ministerial career in Nigeria, Okonjo-Iweala was vice-president and corporate secretary of the World Bank Group. She left it in 2003 after she was appointed to President Obasanjo's cabinet as Finance Minister on 15 July.

In October 2005, she led the Nigerian team that struck a deal with the Paris Club, a group of bilateral creditors, to pay a portion of Nigeria's external debt (US $12 billion) in return for an $18 billion debt write-off. Prior to the partial debt payment and write-off, Nigeria spent roughly U.S. $1 billion every year on debt servicing, without making a dent in the principal owed.

Okonjo-Iweala also introduced the practice of publishing each state's monthly financial allocation from the federal government in the newspapers. She was instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch and Standard & Poor's. Nigeria is considered to have defaulted on its sovereign debt in 1983 (debt rescheduling is considered a type of default by rating agencies).^[5]

Some controversy surrounded Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment as Finance Minister, as well as that of Foreign Affairs minister, Olu Adeniji, as other ministers were resentful of their United Nations salaries of over US$240,000, compared with their own $6,000 base salary. The controversy was spearheaded by reform-minded media reports, although Okonjo-Iweala felt that her critics were unjustified because of the temporary nature of the payment, which came out of the donor supported Diaspora Fund negotiated by the Nigerian government^[6] . On Friday, 20 July 2007, the Court of Appeal ruled that the salary payment was not done within the ambit of Nigeria's laws, and directed her and Adeniji to pay back the excess to the account of the state.

Both Okonjo-Iweala and the Federal Government of Nigeria have appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and jugdement is pending. The appeal is on the basis that the appeals court made its judgement due to erroneous information provided to it that the Nigerian government was making the salary payments, when in fact it was not.

She resigned as Nigeria's Foreign Minister on August 3, 2006 following her sudden removal as head of Nigeria's Economic Intelligence team by President Olusegun Obasanjo. She left office at the end of August 2006.

On October 4, 2007, World Bank President Robert Zoellick appointed her to the post of Managing Director, effective December 1, 2007.^[7]

Non-profit work

In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala's NGO, NOI Global Consulting, partnered with the Gallup Organization to introduce an opinion poll, the NOI poll, into the Nigerian polity.^[8] She is a fellow at the Brookings Institution.^[9] Okonjo-Iweala also serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Financial Integrity Program and on the Board of Directors of the World Resources Institute.^[10]

Honors and awards

• Time Europe Hero 2004^[7]
• This Day Nigeria Minister of the Year 2004^[7]
• Euromoney Magazine Global Finance Minister of the year 2005^[7]
• Financial Times/The Banker African Finance Minister 2005^[7]
• Nigerian of the Year 2006.^[11]
• Honorary Doctorate from Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
• Honorary Doctorate from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland.
• Honorary Doctorate from Colby College, Maine, USA.
• Honorary Doctorate from Northern Caribbean University, Mandeville, Jamaica.

Additionally, on September 28, 2007, Irish musician Bono was awarded the Liberty Medal. Bono donated the $100,000 prize to the Washington-based Debt AIDS Trade Africa, which he co-founded, and Okonjo-Iweala accepted the award on the organization's behalf.^[12]

Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic, first black African who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.

NO DOUBT, WOLE SOYINKA IS AMONG NIGERIA BEST PRODUCTS LOCALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY. AND WE ARE PROUD OF HIM!

"Soyinka probably would like to be recognized most especially as a dramatist and man of the theatre. He implied that much at the opening of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech (dedicated to Nelson Mandela) as he related back to a moment in the past, in his theatrical beginnings, to inform the crucial political situations of the present world order. This recognition would seem to be justified, considering his gamut of plays, but more especially so because in his drama can be located elements of his equally important literary forms..." ( Femi Euba in Postcolonial African Writers, ed. by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne, 1998)

Wole Soyinka

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986

Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, "The 1960 Masks" and in 1964, the "Orisun Theatre Company", in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months untill 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.

As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi's Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinka's serious philosophic plays are (apart from "The Swamp Dwellers") The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the King's Horseman (performed 1976, publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay's Beggar's Opera and Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Soyinka's latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce's and Faulkner's, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer's thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents' warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).

Soyinka's poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre, and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1988).

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1987

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

"Soyinka probably would like to be recognized most especially as a dramatist and man of the theatre. He implied that much at the opening of his No

Wole Soyinka

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986

Biography

Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, "The 1960 Masks" and in 1964, the "Orisun Theatre Company", in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months untill 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.

As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi's Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinka's serious philosophic plays are (apart from "The Swamp Dwellers") The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the King's Horseman (performed 1976, publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay's Beggar's Opera and Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Soyinka's latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce's and Faulkner's, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer's thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents' warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).

Soyinka's poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre, and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1988).

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1986, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1987

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.