For outgoing Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, the end of an era has turned out to be the beginning of yet another epoch.
Stepping down alongside Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan from the nation’s federal cabinet, Dr. Adesina was on Thursday elected the eight President of the African Development Bank at the continental financial institution’s 50th Annual General Meeting in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
An elated Adesina expressed his joy at the election, saying: “Today, I have been given a great responsibility”.
His candidature, nominated by outgone President Goodluck Jonathan, was backed by President Muhammadu Buhari who recently asked former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to lead a delegation to South African President, Jacob Zuma, to canvass support for the Nigerian candidate.
As Minister, Adesina was one of the leading lights of the Jonathan administration, receiving rave reviews for revolutionizing the nation’s agriculture sector.
Adesina will take office on September 1.
The bank’s President-Elect was quoted on the bank’s website as saying that he was “humbled by this remarkable vote of confidence in me” on the part of the Bank’s Board of Governors.
His name was announced by Albert Toikeusse Mabri, Minister of Planning and Development for Côte d’Ivoire, and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the bank.
The election process was concluded by voting among the Bank’s Board of Governors (54 regional member countries, 26 non-regional), whose voting powers are weighted.
The bank quoted Mabri as emphasising that the result “was an expression of the willingness of all the member countries,” and he applauded the “good spirit that prevailed during the election process that was not marked by any tension.”
Adesina succeeds Donald Kaberuka, whose second term as President of the Bank ends on August 31, 2015, and to whom he paid tribute in a press conference, saying, “I salute the excellent work of President Kaberuka. It will be a big challenge for me to step into his shoes. He leaves a solid Bank behind him.”
In his speech at the Annual Meetings opening ceremony on Monday, May 25, Kaberuka had said: “To my incoming successor, my very best wishes. Ten years goes by very quickly. It is a complex and merciless job, but very exciting. It is, in fact, not a job – but a mission.”
A total of eight candidatures received by the closing date of 30 January 2015 were approved by the Steering Committee of the Board of Governors. The list of candidates was officially announced on 20 February 2015.
The other candidates in the election were: Sufian Ahmed (Ethiopia), JaloulAyed (Tunisia), KordjéBedoumra,(Chad), Cristina Duarte (Cabo Verde), Samura M W Kamara (Sierra Leone), Thomas Z Sakala (Zimbabwe) and BiramaBoubacarSidibé (Mali).
His predecessors are Mamoun Beheiry (Sudan), 1964-1970; Abdelwahab Labidi (Tunisia), 1970-1976; Kwame Donkor Fordwor (Ghana) 1976-1980; Willa Mung’Omba (Zambia), 1980-1985; Babacar N’diaye (Senegal), 1985-1995; Omar Kabbaj (Morocco), 1995-2005; and Donald Kaberuka (Rwanda), 2005 to date.
