Business Day (Nigeria) columnist David Hundeyin echoed the increasingly popular sentiment in Nigeria that geopolitics, not an effort to fight corruption is behind the U.S.-led drive to investigate Akinwumi Adesina, the popular president of the African Development Bank.
Hundeyin, who is also a well-known contributor to CNN and The Africa Report among other publications, contends that Washington’s efforts to contain China’s growing influence in Africa provides a better explanation for U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s insistence that the bank launch an external probe into malfeasance allegations against Adesina.
Key Highlights From David Hundeyin’s Column on Why the U.S. is Going After Adesina Because of China
- IT’S ALL ABOUT CHINA: “Mr Adesina is little more than a supporting character in the cast of real issues fueling the crisis. The real protagonists are the Americans and their established Africa doctrine on the one hand, and the Chinese and their Africa strategy which happens to be diametrically opposed to that of the Americans on the other. “
- GOING AFTER ADESINA IS A SIGN OF DESPERATION: “The U.S. has no actual plan for counteracting Chinese influence-buying on the continent by making large scale statement-of-intent investments of its own. While Xi Jinping was signing deals to build economy-changing railroads in Nigeria and Ethiopia, the only answer from Barack Obama and his successor has been AFRICOM — a military body set up to fight vague and undefined “threats.”
It’s important to note that neither the U.S. Treasury nor the State Department has provided the slightest indication that challenging China or otherwise retaliating against Adesina for his supposedly close ties to Beijing is behind the call for an external investigation.
What’s noteworthy here is the growing sense of frustration among leading politicians and influencers like Hundeyin, who are struggling to understand U.S. motivations for going after Adesina, particularly at such a sensitive time amid the growing economic uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak.
SUGGESTED READING:
- BUSINESS DAY: AfDB crisis underlines America’s failure of imagination in 21st Century Africa by David Hundeyin
- BLOOMBERG: AfDB to Review Probe Into President After U.S.-Nigeria Spat by Leanne de Bassompierre and Katarina Hoije
