President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has continued to enjoy a growing support with the latest of such coming from a former United States’ representative at the bank, Mima Nedelcovych.
Nedelcovych, a former AfDB director, said unless there were reasons the US is adamant for a probe that the public is unaware of, Adesina’s second term in office would be of immense benefit to it.
“I am fully convinced with the responses provided by Dr. Adesina to the accusations of the whistleblowers. Unless the US is holding some secret that the American public is not aware of, I see absolutely no reason why it should not wholeheartedly support the reelection of President Akinwumi Adesina for a second term at the helm of the African Development Bank,” he said during an interview with an online news medium, Pan African Visions.
Basing his convictions on the growing need to compete with China over its growing influence on the continent, Nedelcovych disclosed that supporting the candidacy of the African shareholders and Adesina is in the US interest saying, “If competing with the chinese in Africa is primordial to the US, then supporting the position of our African fellow shareholders in the AfDB and supporting President Akinwumi Adesina is in our own interests.”
Adding that he was satisfied with the response of the bank’s president to the allegations by the whistleblowers, the former US executive director at the AfDB between 1989 and 1993 said Adesina did creditably well in his time at the helm of the institution and during the coronavirus pandemic and called on African leaders to publicly give their support to the AfDB boss.
He explained further, “For me, those allegations that were made public and investigated by the Ethics Committee have been responded to in great detail by President Adesina to my full satisfaction. Adesina and the AfDB have stepped up when most needed for an African institution to lead the way in the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
