Behind The Allegations, Are These Why Akinwummi Adesina, AFDB President Is Under “Attack” ?

The United States backed by France has refused to abide by the clearance given the African Development Bank President Akinwunmi Adesina by the Bank’s Ethics Committee, made up of Executive Directors representing shareholder nations on all allegations raised by a whistleblower.

The U.S against the decision of other nations representing over 70% stake in the AFDB wants the allegations to be examined through a process that is alien to the institution.

The allegations against Adesina came at a time it was clear there he faced no opposition to securing another term in office.

Behind the allegations raised by whistleblower and insistence U.S for a probe via a process strange to the rules guiding the operation and resolution of issues within the AFDB, sympathizers of Bank President Adesina have reeled out possible reasons he is currently under attack – and his position heavily threatened.

1. He is an unapologetic Pan-Africanist, who more than any other President has moved the development agenda of the Bank and Africa forward in a manner that no other in the Bank’s 56-year history has.

2. On the Board, he does not kowtow to the U.S. or its whims on critical issues related to Africa’s development.

3. In 2019 he successfully led the Bank’s shareholder General Capital Increase from $93 billion to $208 billion. In the process he became the first Bank President to take the risk of championing a case for increasing capital for Africa’s development during a first term in office. It was a gambit that paid off in spite of initial strong American opposition.

4. In 2018, Adesina championed and helped create the Bank-sponsored Africa Investment Forum which in 2018 and 2019 attracted more than $80 billion in infrastructure investment interests into the continent. This was an unprecedented initiative. The  U.S. representative was said to have considered the Forum a departure from the Bank’s original mandate. Some also saw this as an attempt by Adesina to help wean African nations off of a dependency on foreign aid. Some critics also suggested that Adesina was attempting to burnish his credentials among African Heads of State via the investment forum.

5. Nigeria is the Bank’s largest shareholder, followed by Egypt, Germany, and the United States. In 2019, an OpEd believed to have been crafted by the American Executive Director (Stephen Dowd), appeared in an American newspaper – The Hill. Among other things it questioned why the U.S. (as the second largest non-regional shareholder and the 4th largest shareholder after Nigeria, Egypt, and Germany), did not have veto power at the African Development Bank. 

6. The U.S. Treasury Department has not taken kindly to the fact Adesina has not publicly spoken against China’s increasing economic dominance in Africa. Instead, he has framed his economic argument as follows – “Do not be overly concerned about China’s presence in Africa economically. Be more concerned about America’s absence.” 

In 2019, the U.S. set up DFC – the Development Finance Coorporation – with approximately $60 billion. With DFC and firm control of the World Bank the idea was that the U.S., which has not hidden its anti-multilateral development bias, could easily checkmate China on the African continent. 

The current plan therefore is  to use U.S. reservations about the conclusions of the African Development Bank’s  Ethics Committee as a pretext to possibly pull out of the Bank (Stephen Dowd is reported to have intimated some of his colleagues on the Board of this plan early in May 2020). The veiled attempt is to imperil the institution financially, and subsequently become the dominant development power on the continent. With DFC and the World Bank under its control, the U.S. would seek to dominate Africa economically via a proverbial carrot and stick strategy.

If the Governors of the Bank come back to the United States, and say “no we have carried out our due diligence and duly cleared Adesina of any wrong doing,” this will be the signal for the U.S. to carry out its next line of action  – a possible pullout from the Bank. 

Today, the ball is in the court of especially African shareholder nations. What they decide and what they allow could very well determine the future of the African Development Bank and the future of Africa’s development.