Adesina Breaks Jinx, Elected AfDB President

As predicted by experts, Nigeria’s outgoing Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, 55, on Thursday evening in Abidjan, capital of Cote d’Ivoire, was elected eighth President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) during its 50th Annual Meetings, after garnering 58.1 per cent of total votes cast, including 60.50 per cent of regional votes.

He becomes the first Nigerian to occupy the position in the group’s half century existence.

A statement by the development finance institution, said Adesina emerged after six rounds and over four hours of voting that saw seven rivals from across the continent defeated in a keenly-contested election, which lasted more than four hours.

All the 54 regional members have a combined 3,844,574 votes, representing a 59.509 per cent voting power, while the 26 non-regional members, control 2,592,862 votes and or 40.491 per cent.

Analysis of the voting power shows that Nigeria has the highest of 595,838 votes or 9.256 per cent, followed by Egypt and South Africa with almost 11 per cent of the votes between them.

Samura M.W Kamara from Sierra Leone was edged out of the race in the very first round, followed by Ethiopia’s Sufian Ahmed and Birama Boubacar Sidibe from Mali in the second and third round, respectively. Tunisian Jaloul Ayed was eliminated in the fourth round, while Zimbabwean, Thomas Sakala, lost out in the fifth round. This left Kordjé Bedoumra from Chad and Cristina Duarte from Cape Verde it out with Adesina in the last round of voting, which itself lasted almost two hours, leading to tension as the result was being expected.

Adesina’s closest rival, Bedoumra slugging polled 31.62 per cent of the total votes with 36.63 per cent regional votes. In distant third was Duarte with 10.27 per cent of the total votes and 2.87 per cent regional votes.

The new AfDB President replaces Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka, whose tenure expires on September 1, 2015, for an initial five-year term.

“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,” Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters, after the result was announced.

An equally elated Dr Obi Iwuagwu of the Department of International Relations, University of Lagos, who told our correspondent on Wednesday, that Adesina is favoured to clinch the AfDB top job, told Daily Independent on Thursday that one of the things that worked for Adesina was that “the man was eminently qualified”.

Continuing, he said: “I am excited that he won. This is a sweet victory for Nigerians. For the first time in a long while, our brother African countries have begun to accord us the respect that we deserved as the biggest and most powerful country in Africa”.

He added that as a major stakeholder in the bank, Nigeria should have a say in deciding who becomes what in the bank, adding that the election has demonstrated that Nigeria has taken its well deserved position in the continental body.

He expressed absolute confidence in the ability of Adesina to conduct the affairs of the bank in accordance with best practices available across the world.

“I don’t have any doubt that he will work well. One notable thing is the way both the outgoing administration of Goodluck Jonathan and the incoming administration of Muhammadu Buhari worked together to achieve this presidency. It has shown that we are going to see a new and better Nigeria very soon.

The cheering news comes as Nigeria prepares for the inauguration of the newly elected administration of President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, which holds today.

Buhari had in April communicated his backing of Adesina’s candidacy to the Ghanaian President, John Dramani Mahama, who is the current chairperson of the ECOWAS.

The President-elect said that his support for Adesina’s candidacy was not just because he is Nigerian, but his “proven track record in a career that predates his position as Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development”.

Adesina, son of a poor farmer, has 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. He is also an agricultural development expert with 24 years of experience in developing and managing successful agricultural Programmes across Africa”.

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.

The new AfDB boss holds a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University) and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University. He 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 area. He is at present an associate director for food security. In July 2007, he was awarded the YARA Prize for the African Green Revolution in Oslo. In 2008, Purdue University’s College of Agriculture gave him its Distinguished Agricultural Alumni Award. In 2010, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Franklin and Marshall College.

In 2013, Adesina was named African Person of the Year by Forbes magazine for his agricultural reforms. “He is a man on a mission to help Africa feed itself,” the publication said.

“My goal is to make as many millionaires, maybe even billionaires, from agriculture as possible,” he said while accepting the Forbes award.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and biggest economy, and a leading shareholder in the AfDB.

The appointment of Adesina, after months of intensive lobbying across the continent, analysts breaks the unwritten rule that the top job should go to someone from a small to medium-sized country.