Nigeria: Fifty Years After, Adesina Elected Eighth AfDB President

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has become a key institution in the drive towards greater African economic development. It does this through financing, and also works with the African Union (AU) on initiatives like Agenda 2063 - the continent's blueprint for reaching a peaceful and prosperous Africa in decades to come.
The AfDB's annual African Economic Outlook report, which was released on Monday, 25 May, predicts growth rates of 4.5% for Africa this year and more than 5% for 2016.
The bank cautions, however, against the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and urges governments to reduce inequalities between urban and rural areas in Africa.
The report was released as the series of annual AfDB meetings kicked off in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire: a set of events with particular significance for Africa. It is not only the 50th anniversary of the bank, but also the first annual meeting since the bank moved back from its temporary headquarters in Tunis at the end of last year.
The turmoil following the 1999 coup d'état in Côte d'Ivoire and subsequent instability forced the bank to relocate to Tunis in 2003. Re-establishing the bank in Abidjan is therefore a feather in the cap of Côte d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouattara, who is up for re-election in October this year.
The bank's return is also a positive sign that Côte d'Ivoire could soon regain its former status as the economic powerhouse of francophone West Africa. Ouattara has done well to rebuild infrastructure and is credited by the bank as having made important strides in improving the country's business environment. Still, progress is slow and the country has lost at least a decade of potential growth. Ivorian Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan, who attended Monday's opening ceremony, said the country would this year start to indemnify people who had suffered losses during the last political crisis - more than four years down the line.
The annual meetings will also see the election of a new president of the bank. In the last decade, former Rwandan finance minister Donald Kaberuka, who has been credited with visionary leadership of the bank, has become the face of the AfDB. Kaberuka is stepping down in August.
A new president will be elected tomorrow, 28 May, by the 54 African member states and 26 non-African members. The AU also has 54 member states, but with Western Sahara instead of Morocco as a member. Morocco is an important member of the AfDB and has a high number of votes, according to its financial contribution to the bank. Nigeria is the bank's largest shareholder and has the most votes.
The election of a president to follow in Kaberuka's footsteps has created unprecedented interest. Candidates have increased their appearances on radio and television at home and abroad, and some have created websites with their manifestos for leading the bank in the next decade. Out of the eight candidates, there are four ministers of finance, a minister of agriculture and one of foreign affairs. Two of the candidates have vast experience working in the AfDB. There is only one female candidate.
They are:
Akinwumi A Adesina - Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development
Sufian Ahmed - Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Development
Jaloul Ayed - Tunisia's former minister of finance and President, MED Confederation, a new pan-Mediterranean alliance.
Kordjé Bedoumra - Chad's Minister of Finance and Budget
Cristina Duarte - Minister of Finance and Planning of Cape Verde
Samura M W Kamara - Sierra Leone's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
Thomas Z Sakala - Zimbabwe, former vice-president, AfDB
Birama Boubacar Sidibé - Mali, vice-president operations, Islamic Development Bank
Given the strong list of candidates, not many commentators have risked a prediction about who is leading the pack. Some say, however, that Nigeria's Adesina, who has led the country's agricultural development plans since 2010, could stand a good chance. South African business expert Dianna Games believes South Africa could support Nigeria in this election, following intense lobbying for South Africa's support.

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Abidjan — Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, Thursday broke the jinx when he got elected the eighth president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) at the Annual General Meeting of the bank which held in Abidjan, the Cote d'Ivoire capital.

Adesina who beat seven other contenders for the top job won the election having garnered 58.10 per cent of the total votes, out of which regional votes represented 60.50 per cent. He was followed by Chad's Minister of Finance and Budget, Kordje Bedoumra, who came a distant second with 31.62 per cent of total votes and 36.63 per cent of regional votes while the only woman in the race, Minister of Finance and Planning of Cape Verde, Cristina Duarte, polled 10.27 per cent of the total votes out of which regional votes represented 2.87 per cent.

Adesina's victory comes as Nigeria prepares for the inauguration of the newly elected administration of President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, which holds this morning. The incoming president had in April communicated his backing of Dr. Adesina's candidacy to the Ghanaian President, John Dramani Mahama, who is the current chairperson of ECOWAS.
Buhari said that his support of Dr. Adesina's candidacy was not just because he is Nigerian but because he "has a proven track record in a career that predates his position as Nigeria's Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development".
He added that Dr. Adesina had years of experience of working in Francophone and Anglophone countries, and a passion to help eradicate poverty in Africa by reducing unemployment and inequality among African youth. The statement further adds that "Dr. Adesina is also an agricultural development expert with 24 years of experience in developing and managing successful agricultural Programmes across Africa".
In the same vein, Buhari had sent former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to the South African President, Jacob Zuma, to solicit his support for Adesina's quest.
All of the regional reach-outs have obviously paid off with the election of Adesina on Thursday.
Until his appointment as Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in 2011, he was the Vice President, Policy and Partnerships Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
He has also held senior leadership positions in a number of agricultural institutions in the world.

Adesina, 55, is a PhD holder in Agricultural Economics (1988) from the Purdue University, USA, where he had previously obtained a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics in 1985. He had bagged Bachelor's degree (First Class honours) in Agricultural Economics from University of Ife, Nigeria, in 1981.
Until his appointment in 2010, he was the Vice President of Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
Prior to that, he had worked at the Rockefeller Foundation since winning a fellowship from the Foundation as a senior scientist in 1988. From 1999 to 2003 he was the representative of the Foundation for the southern African region.
From 2003 until 2008 to the present he was an associate director for food security.
Adesina is credited with notable reforms in the agriculture sector that have attracted unprecedented level of investment into the sector.
According to official figures, within the last three years, food import has dropped significantly from N1 trillion to N466 billion.
As part of the reforms in the sectors, transparency in the administration and distribution of fertilisers have abated corruption and corrupt tendencies in the processes, hitherto a cesspit of graft.
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