Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday played host to the embattled President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, where he assured the latter that Nigeria would stand solidly behind him in his bid to get re-elected as the bank’s president for the second term of five years.
Speaking at the State House in Abuja, while hosting Adesina on a courtesy visit, Buhari joined other prominent Africans to launch a counter-narrative and insist on Adesina’s candidacy for the second term.
Buhari said: “In 2015, when you were to be elected for the first term, I wrote to all African leaders, recommending you for the position.
“I didn’t say because you were a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) minister, and I belonged to the All Progressives Congress (APC), so I would withhold my support.
“I’ll remain consistent with you, because no one has faulted the step I took on behalf of Nigeria.”
The Nigerian President’s position was coming after the United States of America, Denmark, Norway and Finland had called for a re-investigation into the alleged breach of ethics levelled against Adesina.
Dissatisfied with the clean bill of health issued to Adesina by the bank’s Ethics Committee over the 16-point allegations, USA and some other stakeholders urged AfDB Board of Governors to re-investigate the incumbent president.
But speaking on Tuesday in Abuja, Buhari pledged that Nigeria would work with all other leaders and stakeholders in AfDB to ensure that Adesina is elected for a second term, towards sustaining the record of his achievements during his first term.
It would be recalled that the African Union had already endorsed Adesina as sole candidate for the continent.
Giving a background to what was happening in the bank, Adesina, a former Nigerian Minister for Agriculture, said the allegations raised against him were trumped up, “and without facts, evidence, and documents, as required by the rules and regulations of the bank.”
The embattled AfDB president explained that the bank’s Ethics Committee cleared him of all the allegations, adding that “calls for fresh investigation by the United States of America were against the rules.”
According to him, “My defense ran into 250 pages, and not a single line was faulted or questioned. The law says that report of the Ethics Committee should be transmitted to the Chairman of Governors of the bank.
“It was done, and the governors upheld the recommendations. That was the end of the matter, according to the rules. It was only if I was culpable that a fresh investigation could be launched.
“I was exonerated, and any other investigation would amount to bending the rules of the bank, to arrive at a predetermined conclusion,” Adesina declared.
Reaffirming the fact that the motive of the re-investigation was designed to soil his name, and that of the bank, Adesina said he was proud to be Nigerian, and thanked Buhari for his unflinching support.
He said: “You helped me to get elected in the first place, and you have supported me robustly all along, and the African Union unanimously endorsed my re-election.”
Adesina also used the occasion to commiserate with Buhari on the death of the former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.
While commending the appointment of Ibrahim Gambari as the new Chief of Staff, AfDB president described the new presidential aide as “a man of integrity, and of global standing.”
