… says ‘his submissions are consistent with his innocence’
THE report of an Independent Review Panel, set up following a complaint by the United States, has exonerated the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, freeing him completely from allegations of ethical misconduct.
The Bureau of Governors of the AfDB set up the Independent Review Panel 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.
Members of the high-level Independent Review Panel include Mary Robinson, 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, Hassan B. Jallow; and 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.
Recall that a group of whistleblowers had, in January 2020, raised 16 allegations of ethical misconduct against the AfDB President.
The allegations were reviewed by the Bank’s Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors in March, and 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 Independent Review Panel has however said 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, in its 32-page report, obtained by The Point, vindicated Adesina, declaring that it had “considered the President’s submissions on their face and finds them consistent with his innocence and to be persuasive.”
With the decisive and positive conclusions of the Independent Review Panel, the coast is clear for Governors of the Bank to re-elect Adesina to a second five-year term as President during the annual meetings of the Bank scheduled for August 25-27.
Recall that former Presidents of African countries and other stakeholders had risen up strongly against what they said could undermine the essence of the Bank, when the US called for an independent investigation into allegations that had already been probed and cleared.
Adesina, a distinguished technocrat and globally-respected development economist, 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 at AfDB 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.
Several Governors of the Bank, who a statement quoted as speaking off the record, have said that it is now time to put recent events in the past; provide the Bank’s President with full support; and bolster its efforts on Africa’s critical development issues.
The exoneration of Adesina in the protracted whistleblowers’ controversy will definitely be celebrated in his home country as a plus for Nigeria and the integrity of its citizens.
