'I can't serve in Buhari's government' - Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says she is not interested in serving as a minister in President Muhammadu Buhari's government.

Okonjo-Iweala stated this during a programme on Al Jazeera 'The Stream' as a guest on Monday night.

''I served my country for seven years and it was a great honour. The second time was very tough but it is still an honour. I am not the only person who is a repository of knowledge. There are other people who can equally try their hands in running the economy. One of the things you learn as you get wiser is to talk less as you grow older. I have spent my time contributing to the country. It will be better to live those managing the economy to do what they know how to do. There can be solutions,'' Okonjo-Iweala said.

 ''I am not a typical politician. I went in as a technocrat. I think on the continent we have seen a period when the economy was doing well, in the last two years we have been experiencing challenges. We  need to focus on the basics which are macro-economics. You must get the fundamentals like having a stable exchange rate and having  inflation under control,'' she continued.

 ''I will advise young people not to wait for employment. They should create jobs to employ six people or more. During my time in government, we had a programme called You Win designed to support young entrepreneurs. The whole idea was to have a business plan competition. The idea was that they should create jobs. And each, created 9-10 jobs. The World Bank did an evaluation of it and found it good. I do believe that the government should come in. We started a peer to peer mentoring. Now, one of the things I want to say is that creating employment is not only about struggles, it is about managing success,'' she added.