In what appears like a boost for the re-election of the Akinwumi Adesina as the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Nigeria has almost doubled its voting rights in the African Multilateral Institution to 16.8% before the lender’s annual general meeting coming up next week.
Adesina, who is from Nigeria is seeking to be re-elected as the head of AfDB after being cleared of all allegations of abuse of office and corruption by the independent panel that was set up by the lender.
According to a report from Bloomberg, a memorandum that was sent to the board of governors of AfDB, states that Nigeria has become the biggest rights holder with a wider margin, followed by non-regional members Germany with 7.4% and the United States 5.5%.
Nigeria increased its voting power by paying subscriptions it had pledged as part of a general capital before the January deadline.
This new development may guarantee Adesina another term of 5 years as the President of AfDB, with the votes hoping to take place on August 27, 2020. He is the sole candidate for this election as against the previous election in 2015, where he contested against the Chadian Finance Minister Kordje Bedoumra and Cape Verde’s Agricultural Minister Cristina Duarte.
The virtual annual meeting is expected to take place between August 25 and 27 after the initial postponement in May due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a statement from the bank’s website,
‘'The format of the meetings has been adapted to consider the physical constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
An AfDB backed probe independent review panel had cleared Adesina of all the allegations against him by a group of anonymous whistleblowers. This followed the request by the US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with the support of some non-regional members for an independent inquiry into those allegations after the ethics committee of the board had initially cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The AfDB is Africa’s largest multilateral bank with 54 African countries and 27 countries in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia as shareholders.
