CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP is both pertinent and inevitable in every top organisation that has fixed tenure of office embedded in them. Depending on the method or means of emergence, whether done by appointment or by election, as entrenched in the institutional rulebooks, new leaders are expected to replace the old while maintaining the continuity of such organised entities. For the African Development Bank (AfDB) headquartered in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, it is time for a change of guards, following an election earlier in May that has brought in a new leader that will hold the reins of affairs of the continental multilateral development financial institutions for a five-year term, beginning from today.

In essence, Dr. Sidi Ould Tah, the Mauritanian economist, elected ninth president of the AfDB, will be taking over from the outgoing Akinwumi Adesina, following the end of the latter’s second mandate that added up to ten years in office. With this, the bank has undergone transitions and transformations over its past three scores of years of existence. The bank, originally established on August 4, 1963 in Khartoum, Sudan, by the then 23 newly independent African countries, has metamorphosed over the years, with many landmark achievements amidst many challenges. Its actual founding in September 10, 1964 by the newly formed Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union (AU), was a historical milestone in an increasingly independent Africa as it has migrated from obscurity to global visibility.

Like any other public institution, the politics of emergence of the occupiers of the top position in the bank is inextricably tied to the powers welded by those who pull the strings. So, the election of successive presidents of the bank derives from the interests of the member countries and their voting powers. However, since 1964, rotation of the president’s nationality has been an unwritten rule held firm over the years, with successive past presidents coming from Sudan, Tunisia, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Morocco, Rwanda and Nigeria. AfDB has had its tough and cool times, affecting the tenures of office of successive presidents.

Mamoun Beheiry, the pioneer president, served from 1964 to 1970. The first governor of Sudan’s central bank and later finance minister, led the technical groundwork for the development finance bank’s creation and was elected president at the inaugural general meeting in November 1964. Following Beheiry was Tunisian Abdelwahab Labidi, who came in first in an interim capacity but later served a full term, staying in office from 1970 to 1976. Ghanaian Kwame Donkor Fordwor, championed the inclusion of non-regionals during his short-lived stint between 1976 and 1979. His adventures, involving his decision to push through the opening of the bank to non-African shareholders, was heavily criticised at the time and ultimately cost him his job as critics feared the bank would lose its African identity. He resigned under pressure. But, before then, the unrelenting Fordwor argued the reform was essential to increase its capital and firepower. It also paved the way for the AfDB to tap into international markets.

Zambia’s Wila D’Israeli Mung’Omba, popularly known as the triple-A president, served from 1980 to 1985, carrying forward Fordwor’s reforms. For example, under his watch, in 1982, non-regional shareholders formally joined the bank’s capital. By 1983, 17 of them, including the US, were attending annual meetings. A further capital hike allowed the bank to secure AAA ratings from Moody’s and Fitch in 1984. A new era began in 1985, marked by stability and international reach as successive leaders have worked to raise the bank’s profile abroad. Babacar N’diaye of Senegal was the first to serve two consecutive terms, a precedent followed ever since. N’diaye, AfDB stalwart and Afreximbank’s founding father, was the AfDB’s helmsman from 1985 to 1995. Moroccan Omar Kabbaj, known as the tough reformer, led the affairs of the bank from 1995 to 2005, followed by Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka, who gave AfDB the global face during his ten year tenure from 2005 to 2015.

He had to his credit the tripling of the bank’s capital to $100 billion in 2010, launching Africa50 in 2013 to fast-track infrastructure funding, and steering the return of the bank to Abidjan in 2014 after Côte d’Ivoire’s recovery from two bitter civil wars.

Akinwumi Adesina, regarded as the ‘visibility president’, took office in 2015 and his tenure has just expired now in 2025. During his tenure, the bank’s capital has more than doubled since 2019. His “High 5” slogan captured the bank’s clear pitch that sharpened its focus, especially through the Africa Investment Forum, which helped to unlock new funding sources and speed up project approvals and disbursements.
Again, the politics of the bank is such that the voting power on the Board is split according to the size of each member’s share. Currently, it is 60 percent to 40 percent between African — or “regional” — countries and “non-regional” member countries, regarded as “donors.” The balance of power is such that some non-regional members are having stronger influence than most other African regional members.

For instance, 24 non-African countries along with the AfDB constitute its current membership and has the United Kingdom as the largest ADF shareholder, with approximately 14 percent of the total voting shares, followed by the United States with approximately 6.5 percent of the total voting powers (shares). This is followed by Japan with approximately 5.4 percent and France with 4.299 percent, all bigger than Egypt with 3.062 percent and Libya with 2.749 percent. It is then easy to imagine the voting powers of Equatorial Guinea, the Gambia, Togo, Eswatini, Eritrea, Djibouti, Lesotho or Guinea Bissau in AfDB as a financial provider to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries (RMC).

The multilateral development bank has recorded appreciable progress in recent history. As of December 31, 2023, the AfDB’s authorised capital was subscribed to by 81 member countries made up of 54 independent African countries — regional members — and 27 non-African countries — non-regional members. From an initial authorised capital of $250 million, AfDB resources increased over a 19-year period in 1982 to $2.9 billion and jumped to $6.3 billion in 1983 as a result of the admission of non-regional countries on December 30, 1982.

It further increased to $22.3 billion barely five years later following a 200 percent Fourth General Capital Increase achieved in Cairo, Egypt, in June 1987. The Fifth General Capital Increase concluded in 1998 recorded a 35 percent capital increase and attributed 60 percent shareholding to regional countries and 40 percent to non-regional countries. The authorised capital at December 31, 2010 was $102 billion, while the capital subscribed at the same date was $36 billion.

In retrospect, the bank’s capital was reported as $208 billion in November 2019. In May 2025, the bank raised its general callable capital to $318 billion. On January 30, 2024, the bank launched a hybrid capital transaction with a coupon of 5.75 percent until August 2034, with a 10.5 year first call date at the bank’s discretion. The bank achieved a top quality and granular orderbook with over 275 investors, of which over 190 were allocated. Investor demand was very strong with a peak orderbook of over $6 billion.
The African Development Bank, rated Aaa/AAA/AAA/AAA by Moody’s/S&P/Fitch/Japan Credit Rating, all stable, has successfully launched and priced its first Sustainable US dollar-denominated 750 million perpetual subordinated hybrid capital notes. As of May 2025, AfDB’s capital was $318 billion.

The future of AfDB deserves some special attention from power and global political perspectives. The events that played out in the mid-2020, in which Adesina was embroiled deserve some introspection. The tendency of France to meddle in AfDB was obvious in what appeared like a proxy war against Adesina. Although two-term tenure is not automatic for any candidate, the ambush against Akinwumi Adesina appeared like a counter-move to his re-election schemes when securing endorsements from the African Union and the ECOWAS regional bloc was imminent.

The orchestrated French media smear campaigns that sounded more like media activism gave the game away as led by Le Monde, a French newspaper, and Jeune Afrique, reinforced by the Africa Report, another news outlet. This was happening when France’s backdoor scheming and conspiracy with Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara on the Eco regional currency was going on. France needed to harness its proxies for effect. Of course, the Eco currency conspiracy flopped and the threat level to France’s influence on Africa’s economies weakened, especially on the francophone countries of West and Central Africa.

Although attention was disproportionately paid to the US meddling as the presumptive adversary, France was visibly left out in the boardroom spat. Presumably, France had not seen the coups d’états of Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger coming or played down on their prospects and probably did not envisage the disruption these would cause to its hegemony. So, its energy was focused on who headed AfDB. One of the troubling signs which even Adesina probably downplayed was the allegation raised by the “whistleblowers” indicating that Adesina was not speaking French as much as English even though he is fluent in both. France obviously wanted someone in place that could be a tool or an ally to help in actualisation of its plans. And that obviously was not going to be someone from an anglophone country.

The internal politics during Adesina’s tumultuous first term was one in which the francophones were polarised against Anglophones as the former group has numerical advantage as individual nations, as 14 out of the 54 countries making up the regional members of the bank.
Subsequent developments, if examined much deeper, might reveal the nexus between France, the francophone African countries and the battle to control the AfDB, as the first Anglophone candidate at the helm of the bank’s affairs needed to be shoved aside to make way for a French puppet. While the breaking away of the AES countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger may have devastated France’s permutations, it is important to imagine the desperation of France in retaining control of important levers of power and economy in Africa for its own survival. How the African Union and the remnants of ECOWAS would rein in France and reduce the influence of other non-regional members while giving greater control to Africa is hereby considered a challenge that requires the response of Africans.

Although AfDB is not a regional Central Bank and its mandates don’t involve policies like those of central banks, it nonetheless needs to cast a hard look at the influence of non-regional members and the future implications for Africa as a whole.
But then, various African countries need to reexamine the power balance in the bank and give Africa greater power through greater shares and voting rights. As long as many foreign countries still retain primacy and greater influence on the bank, its platform can still be used to fulfill the plans and goals of external members while African country members are led by the nose.