The President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, is clean, and has been completely exonerated by the Independent Review Panel. The Independent Review Panel was set up by the Bureau of Governors of the Bank, following a complaint by the United States, to review the process by which two previous organs of the Bank – the Ethics Committee of the Board, and the Bureau of the Board of Governors – had previously exonerated Adesina.
This outcome was largely expected as what they accused him, if accepted, will mean no leader can function in this world. When I read the allegations, I wrote this in May 2020:
These allegations are mundane; the Board can handle them, and communicate to its shareholders. They are not things, in my opinion, for an external counsel to investigate. President Trump does what Mr. Adesina is accused daily in Washington DC! Adesina does not have his daughter and son-in-law working in his office or vacationing in his hotels!
Now, the road to the second term begins.
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The full statement
A much awaited report by an Independent Review Panel has completely exonerated the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina of any ethical wrongdoings.
The Independent Review Panel was set up by the Bureau of Governors of the Bank, following a complaint by the United States, to review the process by which two previous organs of the Bank – the Ethics Committee of the Board, and the Bureau of the Board of Governors – had previously exonerated Adesina.
The distinguished three-member Independent Review Panel include Mary Robinson, who is a former President of the Republic of Ireland, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Chairperson of the Elders, a global body of wise persons concerned with the world’s wellbeing; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Gambia, Mr. Hassan B. Jallow; and Mr. Leonard F. McCarthy, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, a former Director for the Office of Serious Economic Offences, and a former Head of the Directorate of Special Operations of South Africa. He also served as the Vice President of Integrity for the World Bank for nine years.
In January 2020, sixteen allegations of ethical misconduct were levelled against Adesina by a group of whistleblowers. The allegations which were reviewed by the Bank’s Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors in March, were described as “frivolous and without merit.” The findings and rulings of the Ethics Committee were subsequently upheld by the apex Bureau of the Board of Governors in May, which cleared Adesina of any wrongdoing.
The report of the Independent Review Panel states that it “concurs with the (Ethics) Committee in its findings in respect of all the allegations against the President and finds that they were properly considered and dismissed by the Committee.”
The Panel once again vindicates Adesina and states, “It has considered the President’s submissions on their face and finds them consistent with his innocence and to be persuasive.”
The conclusions of the Independent Review Panel are decisive and now clear the way for Governors of the Bank to re-elect Adesina to a second five-year term as President during annual meetings of the Bank scheduled for August 25-27.
Adesina is a highly decorated and distinguished technocrat and globally-respected development economist. He was awarded the prestigious World Food Prize in 2017 and the Sunhak Peace Prize in 2019 for global leadership in agriculture and for good governance.
Since taking over the reigns of the Bank in 2015, he has introduced several innovative reforms including a High5 development strategy; a restructuring of the bank including setting up offices in several African nations to get closer to its clients; an Africa Investment Forum that has attracted $79 billion in investment interests into projects in Africa between 2018 and 2019. He successfully led a historic General Capital Increase campaign that culminated in the Bank’s shareholders raising the institution’s capital from $93 billion to $208 billion, in October 2019.
In June and July respectively, global credit ratings agencies Standard and Poors and Fitch Ratings both affirmed the ‘AAA’ rating of the Bank, with stable outlook.
Under Adesina’s leadership the African Development Bank launched a $10 billion crisis response facility to boost African nations’ ability to tackle the health and economic effects of COVID-19.
Several Governors of the Bank speaking off the record, say it is now time to put recent events in the past; provide the Bank’s President with full support; and bolster the Bank’s efforts on Africa’s critical development issues.
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It’s a welcome development, including the accusations, probes and subsequent exoneration and final clean bill. They all add up in bringing probity and trust to public institutions.
Public offices invite all manner of scrutiny, so no one needs to frown at it, else there may be nothing left to preside over, by the time you enquire.
So, can we extrapolate the processes Mr Adesina went through and apply same to NNPC, EFCC, NDDC and any of the MDAs whose heads or divisions have been fingered to have engaged in one form of misdemeanours or malfeasances? That is how you keep people on their toes and make them accountable to the high offices they preside over.
Nigeria needs to wake up, a thief cannot be in charge of purse anywhere sane humans exist; the Adesina treatment needs to scale across Nigeria, so that when you are found clean, all people will know that you are clean indeed.
There are lots of people who need job here, so it won’t be a bad idea if we learn to sack heads of agencies and departments on weekly basis, even for minutest of offences. So that whoever that is going in next would know that he/she could be out of job within seven days; and when you manage to stay one year in an office, then you will be celebrated.