By Babajide Okeowo ( The New Diplomat’s Content Editor)
As calls intensify for Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President of African Development Bank (AfDB) to step down from his role as the president of the Bank to pave way for independent and impartial investigations into allegations of corruption and ethical misconduct leveled against him, former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has urged African leaders to rally round and support an embattled Adesina.
Chief Obasanjo, in a furious formal letter addressed to some former African presidents, posited that Adesina has taken the AfDB to a great and enviable heights since he assumed office as boss of the Bank five years ago, stressing that any attempts to cast a slur on his image and performance would amount to being victimized.
According to Obasanjo who served as Nigeria’s military Head of State as well as two-term civilian president averred that failure to defend Adesina will mean the end of the African Development Bank, as its governance will be hijacked from Africa.
“If we do not rise and defend the AfDB, this might mean the end of the African Development Bank, as its governance will be hijacked away from Africa,” Obasanjo said.
In the letter dated May 26, 2020, the former Nigerian president maintained that the Bank, under Adesina has been actively re-positioned as an effective global institution ranked fourth globally in terms of transparency within the ranks of 45 multilateral and bilateral global institutions.
He wrote: “The Bank has been effectively positioned as an effective global institution ranked 4th globally in terms of transparency among 45 multilateral and bilateral institutions by Publish What You Fund, an outfit that consists 19 developed economies. Adesina led the bank to successfully launch at the G7 Summit.
“As Africa faces COVID-19, Dr Adesina again took bold measures to ensure the bank can respond proactively to support African countries and got its board of directors to approve a $10 billion crisis response facility to support African countries. In addition, the bank successful launched a $53 billion ‘Fight COVID-19’ social impact bond on the international capital market, secured at 0.75 per cent interest rate”.
Explaining further, Obasanjo said the AfDB’s outstanding accomplishments made all the heads of state and governments of ECOWAS region to endorse Adesina for a second term while stating that it is crucial to emphasize the need for the AfDB to remain an African-focused development bank rather than one which serves interests outside of Africa.
Obasanjo who came very hard with criticism evidently pointed at the United States postulated that the introduction of foreign practices being recommended by some parties given that such recommendation falls outside the laid down procedures, laws, rules and regulations of the bank would not augur well for the Bank.
“Despite these achievements and impressive leadership for the bank and passion for Africa’s faster paced development, and his clear endorsement by al of African countries for re-election for his second term, there are some attempts by some non-regional member countries of the bank to frustrate his re-election.
“The United States Government, through the U.S.Treasury Secretary, has written a public letter (that was also distributed to the press globally) to disagree with the conclusions of the ethics committee of the board of directors and the chairman of the board of governors of the bank. Instead of accepting the exoneration of the president of the bank, they (U.S.) called for an independent investigation.
“This is outside of the rules, laws, procedures and governance systems of the bank. The U.S. Treasury Secretary disparaged the bank and ridiculed the entire governance system of the bank which has been in place since 1964”, he said.
Recall that Adesina who is currently facing 16 allegations of impropriety, ethical misconduct, fraud and inappropriate activities leveled against him by a group of whistleblowers within the AfDB has continued to maintain that he is innocent of the accusations.
However, the United States is insisting on an independent, impartial and transparent investigation in line with international best practices, finance institutional protocols and organizational ethics inspite of the fact that Adesina had previously been given a clean bill of health by the ethics committee of the AfDB.
In response, Adesina alleges that the allegations against him are part of a plot to fire him at all cost because of his re-election bid , and that the allegations are being used as mere smokescreen.
