Mr. Akinwumi Adesina (Pic by Colin Patterson)

Akinwumi Adesina, the Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has been elected as the 8th President of the African Development Bank and would succeed Donald Kaberuka of Rwanda. Adesina assumes duty on September 1, 2015 in Abidjan.

“Today, I have been given a great responsibility,” Akinwumi A. Adesina said upon his election as the 8th President of the African Development Bank Group.

The President-Elect said he was “humbled by this remarkable vote of confidence in me” on the part of the Bank’s Board of Governors, who met during the Bank Group’s 50th Annual Meetings in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

His name was announced by Albert Toikeusse Mabri, Minister of Planning and Development for Côte d’Ivoire, and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank. The election process was concluded by voting among the Bank’s the Bank’s Board of Governors (54 regional member countries, 26 non-regional), whose voting powers are weighted.

Mabri emphasized that the result “was an expression of the willingness of all the member countries,” and he applauded the “good spirit that prevailed during the election process that was not marked by any tension.”

Currently serving as Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwumi A. Adesina succeeds Donald Kaberuka, whose second term as President of the Bank ends on August 31, 2015, and to whom he paid tribute in a press conference, saying, “I salute the excellent work of President Kaberuka. It will be a big challenge for me to step into his shoes. He leaves a solid Bank behind him.”

In his speech at the Annual Meetings opening ceremony on Monday, May 25, outgoing AfDB President Donald Kaberuka had said: “To my incoming successor, my very best wishes.  Ten years goes by very quickly. It is a complex and merciless job, but very exciting. It is, in fact, not a job – but a mission.”

Akinwumi A. Adesina, 55, will assume office on 1 September 2015.

A total of eight candidatures received by the closing date of 30 January 2015 were approved by the Steering Committee of the Board of Governors.  The list of candidates was officially announced on 20 February 2015.