Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwumi Adesina, has won the race to be named the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB). The result of the election was released to the public by Minster of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The minster, who hailed Adesina, said he was great and labelled his campaign as strong and great.
Okonjo-Iweala made the announcement on her personal twitter handle @NOIweala.
Adesina has also used his twitter handle to confirm his appointment. He says as president, he will not let Africans down.
Adesina was appointed minister in 2010 by President Goodluck Jonathan. Before his appointment he was vice president of policy and partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
Back in 2013, the minster was voted African of the year in 2013, by Forbes magazine for his agricultural reforms.
Adesina has held senior leadership positions in some of the principal agricultural institutions around the world.
The ministry of agriculture lists his foremost positions as; principal economist and social science coordinator for the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan (1995-1998); Principal Economist and Coordinator of the West Africa Rice Economics Task Force at the West Africa Rice Development Association (1990-1995), Assistant Principal Economist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Associate Director, Food Security at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he was in senior leadership positions from 1998- 2008; Regional Office Director and Representative for Southern Africa.
It would be recalled that Muhammadu Buhari, the president-elect, asked the Economic Community of West African States to throw its weight behind the candidacy of Dr Adesina as the next president of the AfDB.
