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AFP
Adesina denied the allegations against her, saying they were attempts to tarnish her reputation.
The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) was exonerated from the corruption charges after a review by an independent panel.
The United States, one of the bank’s largest shareholders, insisted on a new investigation in April after an internal review authorized Akinwumi Adesina.
The whistleblowers had accused the Nigerian of giving contracts to friends and naming relatives in the bank.
Mr. Adesina will be re-elected for another five-year term in August.
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The 60-year-old banker, a former Nigerian agriculture minister, will be the sole candidate in the election.
A charismatic speaker, known for his elegant suits and bow ties, has led the bank since 2015.
He had denied the allegations against him, saying they were “attempts by some to tarnish” his reputation.
Eight things about Akinwumi Adesina:
- First Nigerian to lead AfDB
- Elected for a period of five years in September 2015
- He was Nigerian Minister of Agriculture from 2011 until his transfer
- Named Forbes Africa Person of the Year in 2013 for his “bold reforms” in the agricultural sector
- An academic in Nigeria told him that he would never enter Purdue University since his mathematics was poor
- He showed him that he was wrong to enter the prestigious American institution
- He canceled his admission to the respected Cambridge University in the UK.
- He obtained his doctorate in agricultural economics in 1988
Sources: AfDB; Forbes magazine
The panel of three experts was made up of former Irish President Mary Robinson, Gambian Chief Justice Hassan Jallow and Leonard McCarthy, former vice president for integrity at the World Bank.
They supported the findings of the bank’s ethnic committee, which exempted Adesina from all charges alleged by the whistleblowers in January.
“The panel agrees with the committee in its conclusions regarding all of the allegations against the president and finds that the committee properly considered and dismissed them,” its report concluded.
The report is a rejection of United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose rejection of the committee’s original review led to his investigation, reports the Bloomberg news agency.
In addition to the 54 central African countries, the United States is one of the 27 non-regional members of the AfDB and its second largest shareholder.
The bank finances projects in agriculture, health, energy, education, transportation and other development sectors in Africa.
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