Friday, March 29, 2024

BREAKING: Adesina re-elected AFDB president

NIGERIA’S Akinwunmi Adesina has been re-elected, for a second term in office, as the President of the African Development Bank.

Adesina was re-elected by the Board of Governors of the Bank at the ongoing AfDB Virtual Annual Meetings in Abidjan, on Thursday.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s Personal Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, made this known via her Twitter handle.

“Our very own Akinwumi Adesina has been reaffirmed as the President of the African Development Bank. Thank you to our supportive President @MBuhari who mobilised support for our own Adesina and why not! Adesina has been proven to be above board,” Onochie tweeted.

Adesina had formally appealed on Wednesday for a second term in office after a months-long storm over alleged corruption and poor governance that ended after he was cleared in an independent probe.

In a speech at the AfDB’s annual meetings, Adesina formally requested a second term as president, declaring that he was “doing it with an acute sense of duty and commitment.”

“I do it to serve Africa and our bank, in an unbiased way, to the best of the abilities that God has given me,” he said, according to a statement issued in French.

Adesina’s reappointment on Thursday at the helm of the 56-year-old bank is considered a formality as he is the sole candidate.

The future of the flamboyant former Nigerian farming minister clouded this year when whistleblowers alleged his watch had been tarred by graft, poor management, personal enrichment and favouritism, according to AFP.

He was cleared by the organisation’s ethics committee, but the United States then intervened, demanding an independent investigation.

Adesina, 60, fought back angrily, backed by Nigeria, the biggest of the AfDB’s shareholders.

A three-person outside panel, led by former Irish president Mary Robinson alongside Gambia’s Chief Justice Hassan Jallow and the World Bank’s former integrity vice president, Leonard McCarthy, carried out its own review. Its report, issued last month, said Adesina had been properly investigated and that the panel “concurs with the (ethics) committee in respect of all the allegations” against him.

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