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Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina
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The newly
elected President of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina,
yesterday spoke of President Muhammadu Buhari’s role in his election.
Adesina said Buhari made vital phone calls to global
leaders in respect of the position that resulted in his emergence as the AfDB
President, noting that the outcome of the race would have been different were
it not for him.
The ex-minister of Agriculture and Rural Development
under former President Goodluck Jonathan administration spoke at the Oke-Mosan
Governor’s Office, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, when he visited Governor
Ibikunle Amosun.
He added that other notable Nigerians, including
former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and
others stood behind him.
The Nation report continues:
Adesina noted that the dream and vision of African
countries are one and pledged to use his office as president of the continental
bank “to develop Africa, fight poverty, develop infrastructure and revive rural
economies”.
He said: “I want to use this opportunity to
congratulate President Buhari on his election and his inauguration. I want to
thank him tremendously for the support that he gave me on the run for the
presidency of the African Development Bank.
“Without that support and without him personally
engaged in making calls to critical global leaders in the last days of the
election, I don’t think we might have seen the result we saw today.
“I want to really thank the President tremendously for
his support and for his commitment and to helping make sure we got that
victory.
“Obviously, I couldn’t have also been here, except the
former President, Goodluck Jonathan, nominated me. I feel tremendously humbled
with that nomination and supported me tremendously by putting a lot of weight
behind me.
“I want to thank particularly, former Vice President
Namadi Sambo who also went with me to different parts of Africa in mobilizing
support. Also former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who also was in the
frontline of actually pushing and helping us.
“So tremendous amount of goodwill that we had. The
National Assembly was great, the press was generous, and all Nigerians, it is
not about me, it is about our country and we are a great country.
He added: “I want to assure you that I as the
president of the bank, by the grace of God, poverty would not be the
comparative advantage of Africa and we would work very hard to develop
programmes that would end poverty on this continent, that would lead people out
of it and create opportunities for shared prosperity all across our continent.
“Obviously, I think critical issues of infrastructure
would be important, energy for all would be important, electricity would be
important, very critical to build private sector and to create wealth all
across our continent.
“We want to ensure that we are able to create jobs for
hundreds of millions of our people, instead of people going across this Sahara
Desert or Mediterranean to go to Europe, we want to create job on this
continent of Africa and we can do that.
“Also, I believe we must revive our rural economies
and lift hundreds of our rural people that depend on agriculture out of
poverty. So, getting agriculture to work as a business is going to be a big one
that we are going to do for inclusive growth and also into regional
integration.”
Dr.
Adesina said his dream and vision for Africa is one, adding: “An Africa that is
growing well, has a lot of shared prosperity and Africa where you have a lot of
peace, stability and security, and one which is regionally integrated within
ourselves, but also globally competitive in what we do.”
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