{"id":10413,"date":"2020-07-28T19:36:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T19:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=10413"},"modified":"2020-07-28T19:36:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T19:36:54","slug":"top-nigerian-banker-akinwumi-adesina-cleared-after-corruption-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/28\/top-nigerian-banker-akinwumi-adesina-cleared-after-corruption-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Nigerian banker Akinwumi Adesina cleared after corruption probe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has been cleared of corruption charges after a review by an independent panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US, one of the bank&#8217;s biggest shareholders, insisted on a new inquiry in April after an internal review cleared Akinwumi Adesina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whistleblowers had accused the Nigerian of giving contracts to friends and appointing relatives at the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Adesina is set to be re-elected for another five-year term in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-52831185\">Why the US is targeting a flamboyant Nigerian banker<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The 60-year-old banker, a former minister of agriculture in Nigeria, will be the sole candidate in the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A charismatic speaker, who is known for his elegant suits and bow ties, he has led the bank since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He had denied accusations against him, saying they were &#8220;attempts by some to tarnish&#8221; his reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Eight things about Akinwumi Adesina:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>First Nigerian to lead AfDB<\/li><li>Elected for five-year term in September 2015<\/li><li>Was Nigeria&#8217;s agriculture minister from 2011 until his move<\/li><li>Named Forbes Africa Person of the Year in 2013 for his &#8220;bold reforms&#8221; in farming sector<\/li><li>Was told by an academic in Nigeria he would never get into Purdue University as his maths was poor<\/li><li>Proved him wrong by getting into the prestigious US institution<\/li><li>Cancelled his admission to UK&#8217;s respected Cambridge University<\/li><li>Got his PhD in agricultural economics in 1988<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sources: AfDB; Forbes magazine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The panel of three experts was made up of Ireland&#8217;s ex-President Mary Robinson, Gambian Chief Justice Hassan Jallow and Leonard McCarthy, formerly the World Bank&#8217;s integrity vice-president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They backed the findings of the bank&#8217;s ethnic&#8217;s committee, which cleared Mr Adesina of all charges alleged by the whistleblowers in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The panel concurs with the committee in its findings in respect of all the allegations against the president and finds that they were properly considered and dismissed by the committee,&#8221; their report concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report is a rebuff to US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose rejection of the committee&#8217;s original review led to their inquiry, the Bloomberg news agency reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides the core 54 African countries, the US is one of the 27 non-regional members of the AfDB and its second largest shareholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bank finances projects in agriculture, health, energy, education, transport and other development sectors in Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has been cleared of corruption charges after a review by an independent panel. The US, one of the bank&#8217;s biggest shareholders, insisted on a new inquiry in April after an internal review cleared Akinwumi Adesina. Whistleblowers had accused the Nigerian of giving contracts to friends and appointing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Adesina-AFDB.jpg?fit=682%2C452&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}