The immediate past President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, on Tuesday in Abuja said he is ready to serve Nigeria in any capacity, while insisting that he is not looking for a new job.
Adesina, who met President Bola Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, also said the AfDB’s financing to Nigeria during his 10-year tenure was about $7bn, roughly 63 per cent of the $11.1bn the bank has provided since 1971.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting about what capacity he could help Nigeria, he said “I’m fully able to help Nigeria in any capacity. I’ve always had that. My heart is always at home.
“In any capacity that His Excellency feels I can help, I can help in anything. I’m not looking for a job. I’m not looking for anything.
“It’s my country. I have a duty, an obligation and a responsibility to do so, and I will.”
Adesina said he had gone to inform Tinubu that his tenure had ended and to brief him on what the bank achieved.
He explained, “I completed my two terms as President of the African Development Bank, 10 years, and it’s customary and required that I come back home to tell His Excellency the President of the completion of my term, and to give him a report of what was achieved during my term.
“I took the opportunity to brief His Excellency on that. Mr President was very pleased with what was done and what was accomplished.”
On the bank’s contributions to Nigeria, he noted, “If you look at the bank’s support to Nigeria from 2015 to 2025, it was roughly $7bn.
“But if you look at the total amount of bank financing to Nigeria since 1971, when the African Development Bank started operations in Nigeria, it has been $11.1bn. So within 10 years, we were able to do 63 per cent, literally, of that.
“The President was very, very pleased with the various support that has been provided.”
Adesina, an economist and former Minister of Agriculture, also commended the President’s economic reforms, including the removal of the fuel subsidy and the harmonisation of the exchange rate windows.
He said, “These are very, very important, difficult reforms, but they are beginning to bear some fruit, quite some fruit.
“You have a lot more foreign exchange available today. You have a lot of portfolio investors coming into the country. You have inflation trending downwards. Prices are still a bit high, but inflation is trending downwards.
“If you take a look at how the world looks at Nigeria, it’s very, very different. I look at some of the rating agencies, and some of them give Nigeria a stable and also positive outlook.”
He, however, said the work was only beginning, and urged the government to move from stabilisation to structural change.
“You have to now move from the issue of the reforms and stabilisation straight into structural transformation and also growth and prosperity, which is what the President is focusing on.
“That’s just the beginning of the work. I told the President, I’m back at home, here to help and ready to help. It’s my country. I love my country, and I’m ready to help,” Adesina said.
Adesina, 66, became the eighth president of the AfDB in 2015 and was the first Nigerian to lead the bank.
He was Minister of Agriculture from 2011 to 2015.
His term ended on September 1, 2025, and he was succeeded by Dr Sidi Ould Tah.
At a farewell ceremony in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in September 2025, Tinubu said in a goodwill message read by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, “We celebrate your decade-long leadership and achievements at the African Development Bank.”
He credited Adesina’s High 5 agenda with driving growth and food security.