Nigeria, Cape Verde and Chad in race for top AfDB job

Akinwumi Adesina of Nigeria (left), Cristina Duarte of Cape Verde and Kordje Bedoumra of Chad (right) in tight race to succeed Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka as President of the Africa Development Bank. PHOTOS | FILE 

By PETER MUNAITA, The EastAfrican

In Summary

• The voting will go on until one candidate emerges with what is called a double majority – more than half of the votes of African countries and more than half of the votes from shareholders from other continents.
• The winner will succeed Dr Kaberuka who steps down from the bank on September 1, this year after serving two terms.
• Of those left in the race Mr Adesina and Ms Duarte were considered strong candidates even before the voting began but the endurance of Mr Bedoumra still retains the element of surprise in the race.

Only three candidates remain in the running to succeed Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka as President of the Africa Development Bank after one of the frontrunners in the early rounds was eliminated.

Thomas Sakala of Zimbabwe who was fronted by the South African Development Community bowed out less than 40 minutes after Tunisia’s Jaloul Ayed was eliminated.

That leaves three candidates – Nigeria’s Akinwumi Adesina, Cape Verde’s Cristina Duarte and Chad’s Kordje Bedoumra – in the race which has surprised many for the way shareholders dropped five candidates in quick succession.

The race was expected to be drawn out given the calibre of the eight candidates and the regional interests at play. Three candidates - Sufian Ahmed of Ethiopia Birama Sidibe of Mali and Sumara Kamara of Sierra Leone were eliminated in the morning session.

Mr Ahmed is the candidate who was being supported by East African countries with the exception of Tanzania, a member of SADC which was supporting Zimbabwean Thomas Sakala as a bloc.

Of those left in the race Mr Adesina and Ms Duarte were considered strong candidates even before the voting began but the endurance of Mr Bedoumra still retains the element of surprise in the race.

Mr Adesina enjoys the backing of Nigeria and to some extent Ecowas, a constituency which Ms Duarte, who is backed by mostly non-African shareholders of the bank - has also courted.

Mr Bedoumra, a former AfDB vice president, is said to enjoy the backing of francophone Africa for which he is the only one remaining in the race. Ms Duarte, the only woman standing, speaks Portuguese and Mr Adesina English, which with French, are the bank’s official languages.

Positions are expected to change dramatically in the second round when geopolitics come into play. Nigeria President elect Muhammadu Buhari who will be installed tomorrow has taken the campaign to have Mr Adesina, an agriculture development specialist to Ecowas and SADC, two crucial voting blocs.  

The voting will go on until one candidate emerges with what is called a double majority – more than half of the votes of African countries and more than half of the votes from shareholders from other continents.

Nigeria has the biggest voting bloc in the election followed by USA and a lot of horsetrading is expected before the winner emerges.

The winner will succeed Dr Kaberuka who steps down from the bank on September 1, this year after serving two terms.

Dr Kaberuka took the reins of AfDB in 2005 with a commanding mandate of 78 per cent from the shareholders during a special general meeting after a stalemate with a Nigerian candidate during the annual assembly