President Muhammadu Buhari, says Nigeria will stand solidly behind Dr Akinwumi Adesina’s re-election bid as President of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The President gave the assurance when Dr. Adesina paid him a courtesy visit at the Presidential villa Abuja on Tuesday.
The Nigerian leader said when Adesina was elected in 2015 for the first term, he wrote to all African leaders, recommending him for the position.
The President in a statement issued by his special adviser on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, pledged that Nigeria would again work with all other leaders and stakeholders in AfDB to ensure that Dr. Adesina was elected for a second term to build on his first term record of achievements.
The African Union had already endorsed the incumbent AfDB President as sole candidate for the continent, but some stakeholders want to ensure that Dr. Adesina is re-investigated on some allegations, and rendered him ineligible to run.
Giving a background to events in the bank, Dr Adesina, a former Nigerian Minister for Agriculture, said the 16 allegations raised against him were trumped up, “and without facts, evidence, and documents, as required by the rules and regulations of the bank.”
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He added that the Ethics Committee of the bank had cleared him of all the allegations, hence calls for fresh investigation by the United States, were against the rules.
Akinwunmi Adesina expressed gratitude to President Buhari, saying he is proud to be a Nigerian.
He said that the US motive was to soil his name, and that of the bank.
While commiserating with President Buhari on the death of the former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, Dr. Adesina described Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the new Chief of Staff as a man of integrity, and of global standing.
Editor :Tunde Orebiyi.
