AfDB Crisis: Review Panel Exonerates Adesina of Wrongdoing

Malik Yahya/

An independent review panel has endorsed an African Development Bank probe that found no evidence of wrongdoing by its president and former Nigerian agriculture minister, Akinwumi Adesina.

The outcome of the review, which enables Adesina, 60, to seek re-election next month as head of the continent’s biggest multilateral lender for another five years, also serves as a rebuff to U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, whose rejection of the AfDB ethics committee’s original report led to the review.

The panel was the product of a compromise reached between the bank’s shareholders — led by the U.S. and including several non-regional member states — who called for an independent review of the internal probe

The original probe was initiated after unidentified whistleblowers accused Adesina of handing contracts to acquaintances and appointing relatives to strategic positions in the regional bank.

The independent panel, led by former Irish President Mary Robinson, however, said it was “satisfied” with the ethics committee’s findings, according to a document dated July 27.

Other members of the panel include, former Gambian Attorney General, Hassan Jallo and ex-South African Director of Public Prosecutions, Leonard McCarthy.

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.”

Further vindicating Adesina, the panel states that “it has considered the President’s submissions on their face and finds them consistent with his innocence…”.

“It appears to us to be an undue burden to expect the holder of high office in an international organization, to prove a negative, in the absence of sufficient grounds,” the panel also wrote.

Adesina repeatedly denied the allegations and said in a May 27 statement that “fair, transparent and just processes” would confirm his innocence.

The AfDB is owned by 54 African nations and 27 other countries. The U.S. holds the largest stake after Nigeria.

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