The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed that her investigation into an alleged $2.4 billion petrol subsidy fraud was followed by the kidnapping of her mother in 2012.
Okonjo-Iweala disclosed this in a recent interview with Bloomberg, recalling how the abductors demanded that she resign as Nigeria’s finance minister and leave the country in exchange for her mother’s freedom.
Her mother, Kamene Okonjo, was abducted from her home in Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, in December 2012, while Okonjo-Iweala was serving as finance minister under former President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to the former minister, the investigation began after her office detected an unusual rise in claims submitted by petrol importers. She said she subsequently approached the president for approval to audit the accounts.
“So I went to the president and said, look, something is going on here. Could we audit the accounts? And he said, yes, go ahead. And we found about $2.4 billion worth of fraud. So, we refused to pay,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said her mother was kidnapped shortly after the decision not to pay the disputed claims. The kidnappers reportedly told her that her mother would only be released if she resigned from office and left Nigeria.
“I was told (by the kidnappers) that for her to be released, I should resign and leave the country,” she recalled.
Describing the incident as one of the most difficult experiences of her life, Okonjo-Iweala said her mother was held in a forest for five days before escaping.
“She was held in the middle of a forest, and one night she escaped. She’s still alive. She’s 96 now,” the WTO chief said.
She described the ordeal as deeply traumatic, saying she had never imagined that her parents could become targets of such violence.
“It was a terrible, terrible five-day ordeal. I think the worst in my life,” she said.
“I never dreamt my parents could ever be touched in this way, that people would be that evil,” she added.
Okonjo-Iweala also revealed that she considered resigning during the crisis but was advised by her father not to yield to the kidnappers’ demands.
According to her, her father urged her to remain resolute and continue her work rather than submit to what he regarded as blackmail.
“He said, ‘We don’t give in to blackmail’. And he said, ‘You’ve got to carry on. You’ve got to go to work’,” she recalled.
Okonjo-Iweala served as Nigeria’s finance minister from 2011 to 2015 before becoming the Director-General of the WTO in 2021.