Mutiu Yekeen
Immediately her nomination for the position by President Muhammadu Buhari was made public, finance Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun faced various negative arguments as to why she could not and should not occupy the position emerged. Some came from within and others resounded from without. In a petition by the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, the former Managing Director of Chapel Hill Denham Management was accused of being enveloped in various controversies including financial impropriety as commissioner in Ogun. Her citizenship status was also challenged. And then came arguments from powerful political and international lobby groups that having not previously worked with any of the multilateral agencies and not graduated from any of the Ivy League colleges, Kemi was less than qualified to hold national purse.
These lobbyists and detractors fail to reckon with the fact that Buhari’s most important credential is his abhorrence for corruption and corrupt tendencies. Before anybody would be considered to rove around Mai Gaskya (The Truthful One) as Buhari is popularly known, careful due diligence must have been carried out on a multiple layer. The president ignored the nay sayers and stuck to his choice.
With Nigeria’s experience between 2011 and May 2015 in the way that a former Managing Director of the World Bank massively mismanaged the economy even with a doctor of philosophy from Harvard, it is now known that big names don’t necessarily run a good economy. Competence is a different kettle of fish.
Before Kemi Adeosun became Commissioner for Finance in Ogun State, internally generated revenue was less than N3 billion but by the time she left, the state was well on the way to hitting the N10 billion mark. This is the ingenuity that Nigeria needs at the federal level at this crucial period.
During her screening by the Senate, Kemi Adeosun shone like a million stars, dazzling her interrogators with facts, figures and innuendoes that convinced even her greatest critic that she was more than capable.
To show that she was in tandem with her boss on the direction of the economy the youngish and vibrant economist told the members of the hollowed chamber during her screening that currency devaluation on its own won’t solve the nation’s economic problems and that she supports the bank’s foreign-exchange restrictions.
Prior to her nomination as a minister by President Muhammadu Buhari, Kemi Adeosun was already re-nominated as the commissioner of finance in Ogun State.
Born on March 9, 1967 in London, United Kingdom to Mr. and Mrs. Adeosun from Ogun State, Nigeria, Kemi holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of East London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Financial Management from the University of London. The financial accountant started her working life as an Assistant Accountant at British Telecom Company, London between 1989. She later joined Goodman Jones, London as a Senior Audit Officer from 1990 to 1993 where she rose to the senior position of Manager of Internal Audit at London Underground Limited, London and Prism Consulting from 1994 to 2000.
She joined Price Waterhouse Coopers, London in 2000 as Senior Manager and following her return to Nigeria with her family in 2002, became the Financial Controller at Chapel Hill Denham Management and rose to the position of Managing Director in 2010. The indefatigable lady also worked with Quo Vadis Partnership as Managing Director from 2010 to 2012.
She started her political career when she was appointed as the Ogun State Commissioner for Finance from 2011 to 2015. The third of four children of her parents, Kemi Adeosun is a member of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants, England and Wales and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. She is married to Mr. Adeosun also from Ogun State with children.
