Fifty Years After, Adesina wins 8th AfDB President

Firstclass newsline learnt that the immediate past Minister of
Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, on Thursday
emerged as the new President of the African Development Bank.
The 55-year-old Adesina, who until yesterday (Thursday) served the
administration of President Goodluck Jonathan as a minister, defeated
seven other contestants from across the continent by scoring 58 per
cent of the votes cast in an election held in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire,
where the AfDB is based.
He contested against Chadian Finance Minister, Kordje Bedoumra, who
secured 32 per cent of the votes, and his counterpart from Cape Verde,
Cristina Duarte, who got 10 per cent.
The AfDB said on its Twitter feed that Adesina would take over from
Donald Kaberuka of Rwanda on September 1 as the 50-year-old body's
eighth leader.
"It went very well. We are really elated and grateful we have
delivered this for Nigeria. We had a great candidate and a lot of
support," the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told
Reuters after the result was announced.
The bank, which was founded in 1964 to provide capital to foster
economic development and alleviate poverty in its member states, is
financed by both African nations and shareholder countries outside the
continent.
Among other things, analysts say Adesina will have to guide the bank
through the continent's increasingly complex financial environment,
where nations are turning to non-traditional partners like China and
international debt markets.
Adesina was said to have been recommended to Jonathan by the former
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, having
reportedly impressed Sanusi with his work on programmes to improve
agriculture credit.
Bloomberg quoted Adesina as saying that the AfDB needed to focus on
promoting investment by businesses.
"He is an example of a leader in the Nigerian political space who has
done well," Ebenezer Essoka, vice chairman for Africa at Standard
Chartered Plc, told Bloomberg.
He becomes the AfDB leader at a time when falling prices of oil,
copper and other commodities dim the outlook for economic growth and
investment in Africa. The AfDB's loans and grants amounted to $7.8bn
in 2014, 22 per cent more than the previous year.
Despite being a prominent member of Jonathan's cabinet, the newly
sworn in President Muhammadu Buhari supported Adesina's candidature
for the AfDB position and personally campaigned for him.
Shortly after he defeated Jonathan in the March 28 presidential
election, Buhari sent former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as a
special envoy to President Jacob Zuma of South Africa pleading for his
support for Adesina to become the AfDB president.
As agriculture minister, Adesina tried to revitalise farming after
decades of neglect following the discovery of oil in Nigeria in the
1950s. He has been praised for bringing more transparency to
fertilizer subsidies, a programme riddled with corruption in the past.
The Federal Government had estimated that food production increased by
21 million metric tonnes during his tenure.
Firstclassnewsline.net