The recent nomination by the US President, Dr. Joe Biden Jr., for the post of the Deputy Treasury Secretary of the United States has got the world talking. This nomination and numerous other nominations have put the new administration in the limelight of non-racial, non-segregating government, having within its purview the ethics of human capital inclusion.
Adewale ‘Wally’ Adeyemo, as a baby, traversed continental horizons ‘in search of the American dream’; a move that would become the first stage in his adventure to the White House. He saw opportunities and grabbed them and is not new to the White House as he was one of the stars of the Obama Administration. According to Furman, a professor of economic policy at Harvard University, Adeyemo “impressed everyone he met with his intelligence, great judgment and kindness.” Today, he has become the first black and African to occupy that seat.
By merit, he has extensive experience as he is a proven party-man schooled in the ethos of the Democratic Party on managing the United States economic affairs. Adeyemo is at the vanguard of multilateralism and comes in when America is deep in its worst economic crisis since 1929. He is to help in surmounting these challenges and forging the US economy forward. This crisis has seen the unemployment rate skyrocketing from 4.4% to 11.2% within the Q2 2020. It also saw the US GDP go down by 31% within the same period due to the coronavirus pandemic. Biden has, at the frontier of his plans, economic revival especially among the SMEs.
Theafricareport has it that his achievements included: “the negotiation of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement, a free trade treaty signed by Obama in 2016 but abandoned by Trump before it came into force. His closeness to the former president earned him the appointment last year as president of the Obama Foundation that supports charitable work in Africa and elsewhere.”
In responding to his nomination, Adeyemo gave priority to “inequalities, the country’s competitiveness and future employment opportunities.” This will definitely change the current narrative surrounding the American economy.
Wally attended the University of California, Berkeley and attended the Yale Law School. Among other positions of worth in the US, he was appointed to serve as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics and deputy director of the National Economic Council in 2015.
Like we said when we started the discourse yesterday (the case of Ms. Enoh T. Ebong), we are looking at these issues because of the Nigerian connection to them. This further goes to prove that stuffs are in Nigerians’ brains. The sad irony is that much of these achievements, exploits and breakthroughs happen outside the shores of this country.
Now, we begin to ask the questions of wit once more. Would Adeyemo have gotten to the highest echelons of presidential administration in this country? Partly yes, partly no on account of his career in party politics. Would he have performed to the level that merited him this position? Would the government of the day have recognized what he did as a junior officer and give him this appointment or would the position be used to compensate a loyalist who is totally not aligned to economic technocracy? Would ethnicism, tribalism, religious bigotry, etc have denied him the chance to live his dream?
We will be concluding this matter in our next discourse which promises to explore different angles to answering the above questions and much more. Keep an eye on this space.
Azuka Edokobi is a Writer , a Farmer, a Supply Chain Expert and an Entrepreneur
