Akinwunmi Adesina, Nigeria’s minister for agriculture and rural development, has been elected the eighth president of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
He defeated seven other candidates in a keenly-contested election, which lasted more than four hours.
He will take over from Rwandan Donald Kaberuka, whose tenure expires on September 01, 2015.
Samura M.W Kamara from Sierra Leone was 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.
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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 to slug it out with Adesina in the last round of the election, which itself lasted almost two hours, leading to tension as the result was being expected.
At the end, Adesina garnered 58.10 per cent of the total votes and 60.50 per cent regional votes to emerge president, while his closest rival, Bedoumra pulled 31.62 per cent of the total votes with 36.63 per cent regional votes. In distant third was the Duarte with 10.27 per cent of the total votes and 2.87 per cent regional votes.
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Adesina’s nomination was confirmed on February 11, 2015 by the steering committee of the board of governors of the bank, while he received the support of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president-elect, who even detailed former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, to meet President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, to support the agric minister’s candidature.
The election was decided by votes from African and non-African countries with a stake in the bank, with Nigeria having the largest voting power with 9.2 percent.
Adesina, 55, 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.
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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.
6 comments
Congratulations to Dr Akinwunmi and Nigerians
Congrats to Adesina and to Nigeria for a job well done. The co-operation between the President-elect and the President has paid off for Nigeria. Merit should be our watch word in our country in order to claim back Nigeria’s glory. Mediocrity should be a thing of the past.
Your comment.. Congratulations Sir. U re a great man. An epitome of efficiency. A technocract to the core. Sure he ll deliver, cos he did well in President Jonathan’s time.
To God be the glory for Dr Adesina’s election, a wonderful parting gift for Pres. Jonathan, the who discovered and brought him back to serve his country.
Its important we note here that it’s not the visit The Cable claims that Atiku made to his friend Zuma that gave Dr Adesina the seat rather astute performance of Dr Adesina in all his assignments in the last 27 years across the world especially Eastern and Francophone Africa and the numerous diplomatic shuttle of Pres. Jonathan and VP Namadi Sambo and Dr Okonjo-Iweala since 2014 when Dr Adesina first showed interest in the position.
We in Nigeria should learn to give credit to whom it’s due and play politics with everything. Dr Okonjo-Iweala played a very important role in this the way she did when she nominated Dr Lawrence Ogunjobi for same position ten years ago.
In case The Cable doesn’t know, she is the one that nominated Dr Adesina for this position and used more than two years to go around Africa to talk to her coleague Finance Ministers in Africa and the Regional partners like the World bank to support him that’s why and Agric Economist and Agric Minister will be able to beat six finance Ministers for that important position not a one night meeting Atiku had with his friend and business Partner in Pretoria.
Congratulations Dr Adesina, congratulations Nigeria and lovers of Good things.
Your perfectly correct. God bless you
Adesina got it, that is great for Nigeria and let us all enjoy it, this degree of work does not take just one person. May we work together, not go tribal and sectional at times like this.