The African Development Bank meeting to elect a new=20 president turned into a ‘circus’. Kevin Rafferty in Abuja,=20 Nigeria, reports
A meeting of governors of the African Development Bank=20 broke up in disarray in Abuja, Nigeria, this week after=20 failing to elect a new president.=20
The governors will meet again in the headquarters city of=20 Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in August.=20
Kwesi Botchwey, Ghana’s much-respected finance minister,=20 came out of a meeting with his governor colleagues and=20 declared with disgust: “It’s like a circus in there.”=20
The bank is badly crippled. Members of its executive board=20 have announced that they can no longer work with outgoing=20 president Babacar Ndiaye, from Senegal, whose term expires=20 in August. He, in turn, has accused some executive=20 directors of wasting the bank’s money and others of=20 cheating on their expenses and medical bills. He suspects=20 one of money-laundering.=20
A handful of regular bank executives have already been=20 dismissed for fraud and a senior official said there could=20 be as many as 100 sackings.=20
Election of a new president to succeed Ndiaye, who has=20 served a record 10 years, was supposed to be a landmark=20 event, restoring credibility and helping Africa gain a new=20 lease of economic life. There were five candidates — from=20 Lesotho, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria and Uganda — and the=20 winner had to have a majority of the votes and also a=20 majority of the African votes, which account for about 65=20 percent of the total.=20
But the election was a perfect example of the political,=20 regional, linguistic, religious, even colonial divisions=20 which have scarred the continent.=20
Although two candidates, Ugandan Richard Kaijuka and=20 Mauritania’s Mohammed Lekhal, pulled out of the race after=20 the first two rounds, none of the others won an absolute=20 majority of votes. The final voting was between Timothy=20 Thahane of Lesotho and Morocco’s Omar Kabbaj, with=20 Nigeria’s Seyyid Abdulai, third, refusing to withdraw.=20
Kabbaj claimed he was the moral victor because he had a=20 larger share of the African votes. But Thahane said he had=20 got close to a majority. France said Thahane was not=20 qualified because he did not speak French. Southern=20 Africans said that Kabbaj should not be standing at all=20 because Morocco has left the Organisation of African Unity,=20 the bank’s progenitor.=20
Algeria refused to vote for the Moroccan. Nigeria claimed=20 that, as the bank’s largest member, with 10 percent of the=20 shares, it should choose the president.=20
Meanwhile, South African delegates, in Abuja as observers,=20 asked openly why they should put their money in a bank=20 which, despite its triple A rating, squanders its funds and=20 squabbles about everything.